LENT DAY 36: To call on God

 Day 36 Tuesday - Apr 4, 2023; Mar 26, 2024; Apr 15, 2025

And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. -Acts 22:16

Many of us were not baptized as adults, and so unlike Paul who is here recounting his encounter with Annanias, we may not remember the words spoken to us when we were called into faith. We may not recall the promises the pastor declared. We may not remember if the water was hot or cold. A lot of details from the day may elude us. When you are so far removed from your baptism, how shall you find significance from it today?

Begin by listening to what Paul was called to do: call on his name. When you live out your faith, you live out your baptism. When you use the name that was spoken over you, then you are speaking from your baptism. 

My old mentor, Walter Wangerin Jr, wrote a letter to his daughter for her confirmation that he later published in one of his books. In the letter he talks about how from the moment of adoption when she was a baby, she was his child. But he was not her father. That took time, and effort, and the language of his love breaking through. But eventually it did, and she would speak to him as her daddy. I often read that story to our young people about to be confirmed, because it is a parable for baptism and confirmation. From baptism onward, you are God’s child. He calls you as his. But the journey towards confirmation is about the language of God’s love breaking through enough for you to learn to call on God’s name in faith. That’s ultimately what confirmation is doing: it is affirming our baptismal faith to the One who so long ago said “you are mine” by now saying back “I am yours.”

Learning to call on God in faith is learning what God has done long ago. And just as importantly, it is learning that what God has done still holds true enough today to keep on calling.

Father, I call on you who called me “child” in my baptism. Son, I call on the name of Jesus for my forgiveness which you have shared to me in baptism. Holy Spirit, I call on you to raise me up in this most holy faith that I was baptized into. Let your name be on my lips, in my heart, and written deep in my faith with an ink that will not fade. Help me to call on your name always. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.