A Sacramental Intrusion

Lifeguards in wooden boats row lazily in place, just hard enough to counter the gentle swells of Lake Michigan. A plane circles overhead, trailing a streamer advertising an auto dealership. Sailboats break the abutting blues of the horizon with triangles of white.

On the beach itself, Chicago’s ethnic life is splayed out for all to see. Four blocks north, where Latinos reign, English is spoken as a second language if at all. Four blocks south lies Oak Street Beach, where yuppies shed their designer clothes for designer bathing suits. But in between, at North Avenue, the melting pot simmers.

Dudes on roller skates are decked out with helmets and kneepads and stereo headphones. Bicycles honk for sidewalk space. A volleyball court puts shiny, sinewy bodies on display. More bodies, gorgeous bodies, stretched out in a random pattern on the beach, ironically call to mind one of those reenactments of the victims of Hiroshima. These bodies, however—with strips of cloth cut high over the hips—are taking their radiation in slow, buttery doses.

Near the “sixth light pole north of North Avenue,” a ceremony is about to begin. A few disgruntled sun worshipers mutter curse words and move away from the knot of 50 people gathering by the water’s edge. These too, most of them, are wearing bathing suits, though not cut quite so brief. They are from LaSalle Street Church near downtown Chicago, and they have come for a baptism.

The warm-up songs, “Amazing Grace” and a few others, sound thin. We can hardly compete with the ghetto blasters around us. Thirteen baptismal candidates line up to speak, digging their feet into the sand to search for cooler layers. We have to strain to catch their words.

Two young stockbrokers, married, want to “identify with Christ more publicly.” A woman of Cuban descent is dressed all in white. A tall, bronzed man says he was an agnostic until six months ago. An aspiring opera singer, who tells us she just decided to seek baptism this morning, asks for prayer because she hates cold water. (The air temperature is 93 degrees; Lake Michigan is 55 degrees.) An 85-year-old black woman says her doctor insisted she be sprinkled and not immersed. (“Strangest request I ever heard,” the doctor said.) A real estate investor, a pregnant woman, a medical student, and others are there. In turn, they all explain how they came to Christ and why they are here today, standing in a line-up on North Avenue Beach.

One of the candidates has converted to Christianity from a Hindu-type cult in Berkeley, California. To the passersby—the dog walkers, the cops, the strutting bodies—the ceremony itself must seem cultic. Hymns and prayers are rarely heard on Sunday afternoon at the beach.

The candidates respond to a liturgy:

“Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?”

“I renounce them.”

“Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”

“I renounce them.”

“Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?”

“I renounce them.”

After all is renounced and all is affirmed, they go, two by two, into the water. Goose bumps rise on their legs with the first few steps. The pastor waits, waist deep, rocking slightly back and forth with the waves. He says something to each, but those of us on the shore cannot hear. A Frisbee floats past his head. A baptismal candidate reaches over and tosses it back.

The bodies are dipped, quickly. Frosty Lake Michigan makes a memorable impression. When the people come out of the water, their hair is plastered down, their eyes bright and large from the cold.

Back on shore, they get hugs. Wet spots soon appear on all our chests.

“Welcome to the body of Christ,” some say.

How different from the scene that opens Mark’s gospel, I think. We have skyscrapers, not desert rocks, at our backs. Residents of Jerusalem traveled to John the Baptist’s performance—some to believe, some to see the show. We, however, are intruding, taking the ritual into the center, into the city. In our setting, would John have yelled something provocative and gotten himself arrested?

We live in a tolerant country, and no one gets arrested. There are merely a few stares and bemused smiles. We’re not harming anyone: just another religious group doing something weird.

After an hour, we all leave. The scene at North Avenue Beach goes on, filling in the space our church group took by the water’s edge. Our footprints are washed away, our spots on the sand now covered with towels and sunbathers. At the site where the new believers stood and renounced Satan and evil, children now form sand castles.

One thought lingers. As each baptismal candidate was presented, someone from the church prayed aloud for that person and his or her new walk with God. One, in his prayer, quoted Jesus’ promise that there is great rejoicing in heaven when a sinner repents. Seen from the lifeguard tower at North Avenue Beach, not much happened that Sunday afternoon. Seen from another viewpoint, that of eternity, a celebration sprang to life that will never end.

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