Martin Luther had a habit. In moments of doubt or fear, when the dark crept in, he would touch his forehead and say to himself, “I am baptised.” Not “I was baptised” (past tense, finished, filed away), but “I am.” Present tense. A current reality.
That’s a strange way to talk about something that, for many of us, happened so long ago we couldn’t pick the day out of a calendar if we tried.
Some of us were dunked or sprinkled as infants.
Some came to it as adults, with photos and a date we could still find.
Some were old enough to remember the cold water, the words said over us, the faces watching.
So what does it mean to remember something we may not actually remember?
Paul had this exact problem with the early church. When the Romans started drifting, his question wasn’t “have you been baptised?” They had. His question was “don’t you know what your baptism means?” (Romans 6:3). When the Corinthians fragmented into factions, he reminded them they had all been baptised into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). When the Galatians went wobbly on identity, he pointed them back to the waters: “all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
For Paul, baptism wasn’t a one-off event you graduated from. It was a place you kept returning to. An identity you put on every morning. The shape of a whole life.
Remembering your baptism, then, isn’t really about remembering an event. It’s about remembering who you are. That you have died with Christ and been raised with him. That you belong to him, and to his people.
This Sunday at our Last Breakfast service, we’ll be taking time around our tables to share our baptism stories with one another: what we remember, what we’ve been told, what it means to us now. And we’ll be welcoming two people into those same waters, joining the long line of the baptised.
Come ready to remember. Come ready to witness. And maybe, like Luther, find yourself touching your forehead this week and saying quietly: I am baptised.
Box Hill Baptist Church 