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Preaching: Rev. Dr. Kit Schooley

Texts: Genesis 1:1-9 & Mark 1:4-11

A world that once felt like welter and waste can be reordered with a word and a pour. We follow the current from Genesis’s first light to the Jordan’s torn-open sky and into a mountain village where a wooden coffin becomes a font of resurrection. Along the way, we wrestle with an earthy, practical question—how much water is enough—and discover why the church’s oldest wisdom says the power is not in technique but in the God who meets us in ordinary elements.

I share the nerves and wonder of my first baptism in a tiny congregation and how hearing the water changed the room. We explore early Christian instructions that flex around rivers, fonts, warmth, and necessity, and we return to the heart of the act: water and the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Baptism cleanses, yes, but it also marks—like a watermark you only see when held to light—naming us as beloved and claimed. That mark isn’t ink the world can spot; it’s a witness the community learns to recognize in forgiveness, courage, and a hope that doesn’t run dry.

The story crescendo arrives before dawn in a highland village, where an elder lowers a child beneath water that fills a handcrafted coffin, then raises him with a shout of new life as Easter songs break open the morning. Death and birth, endings and beginnings, all meeting in one soaked moment. If you’ve ever wondered what baptism changes, or if you’ve only known the lightest touch of a fingertip, this journey invites you to see and hear grace flow—visible and generous—and to remember who you are when the Spirit says “well pleased.”

If this spoke to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a fresh start, and leave a review telling us how water and word have shaped your story.

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