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When I was asked to write about baptism, I responded with panic. I immediately thought, “All my children… or just the ones who lived?”

After I pushed past grief and fear, I began to think that given the pervasiveness of stillbirth, my experience would resonate with many women. I realized that the invitation to write an article about baptism is also an invitation from the Holy Spirit to give voice to an experience that is seldom talked about.

As a pastor, when I meet with a family for baptism instruction, I like to use a little book by the Rev. Daniel Erlander titled, Let the Children Come. In it, he refers to the baptismal waters as “storied waters.”

This is my story.

While I was in seminary, our daughter, Joy, was born early; she was stillborn. My husband, Benhi, and I were completely devastated. Benhi insisted that Joy should be baptized. There was a clergy member from the seminary community who was present with us in the hospital delivery room to provide us with pastoral care. She discouraged the baptism, saying “Baptism is for the living.”

But my husband was unwavering. At the risk of sounding crass, quite frankly, I did not care. I had just labored all night for a child I knew was already dead. “My soul refused to be comforted” (Psalm 77:2).

Then the hospital chaplain was notified and she came and baptized our daughter. Recently, I asked my husband about that day and what Joy's baptism meant to him. He answered, “I feel that the rite of baptism brought closure and a sense of peace. I connect baptism with the hope of seeing her again in heaven. Not that the baptism got her there but that the baptism affirms that she is there—it’s a tangible manifestation of our resurrection hope.”

As a rostered leader in the ELCA, I understand that the purpose of baptism is not to comfort grieving parents. But for us that day, baptism had a broader function. Please understand: What happened on that December day in 2005 was no heretical conspiracy to corrupt God’s gift of Holy Baptism. It was just a grief-stricken young couple trying to cling to some semblance of hope, of sanity. When we were told that “baptism is for the living,” I can remember thinking immediately, “Well, we’re living.” Now in retrospect, I see more clearly. For us, baby Joy’s baptism helped us survive this tragedy. (Continued on next page.)

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Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. (John 5:2–9)

In John's Gospel we learn about a man with severe physical limitations. He is lying by the pool of Bethesda in hopes of being healed. At the pool of Bethesda, an angel of the Lord would come down at a certain season and would “trouble the waters.” And whoever made it into the waters first would be healed.

Great news, right?

That is unless you are the second, sixth, or 28th to get to the water.
Jesus finds this man and asks him, “Do you want to be made well?” The man explains that he wants to be healed but due to limited mobility, he cannot get to the water quickly enough. Jesus tells the man to “Take up your bed and walk.” The man obeys and is healed... but on the Sabbath. (Continued on next page.)