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A
study by Impressions magazine discovered that businesses that
decorate clothing generated revenue of $43.9 in the United States during
2006. Much of that was in the production of T-shirts and other garments
that had logos, names of places, or other phrases or décor.
What we wear often reveals our attitudes and priorities. T-shirts with
crude or distasteful sayings may express a heart of hate, rebellion or
bitterness. Shirts with names and numbers of sports stars may express an
admiration for a player or team. T-shirts with pictures of places may
commemorate fond memories of great vacations.
On
the other hand, what is on one’s T-shirt may not express any personal
thoughts at all. It may have been a gift from someone else’s vacation or
just a good shirt that was on sale somewhere.
Some people wear T-shirts without a clue as to what they mean. When I
lived in Honduras, I often saw T-shirts with English slogans being worn
by persons who spoke only Spanish. If I asked them what the slogans
meant, they usually didn’t know.
Unfortunately, some people wear religious T-shirts without any idea what
they really mean. Scripture verses are nice, but they mean little if
they are only printed slogans. Angels are God’s messengers, but their
messages are easily lost in fluffy designs and feel-good verses.
WWJD, which stands for "What Would Jesus Do?", may look nice on a
T-shirt, but to God it’s not the letters but our actions that matter.
When Charlemagne conquered the pagans of northern Europe around the year
800 a.d., he declared that they should all convert to the Christian
religion. To encourage their conversion, he sometimes had his armies
round up the people and march them down to the nearest river to be
baptized.
Needless to say, such forced baptism into a religion they knew little
about did not result in many meaningful conversions.
It
is said that Charlemagne once tried a new tactic. He offered white
shirts to any Saxons who would willingly be baptized. The response was
so great that he soon ran out of white shirts and began offering yellow
shirts of lesser quality.
One Saxon chief then refused to be baptized. He reportedly said, "I have
already been baptized twenty times and have received twenty white
shirts. I refuse to be baptized again into a religion that is so cheap
with its cloths."
The problem in Charlemagne’s day, as in ours, is that baptism can become
like a T-shirt with no meaning. The meaning does not lie in the visible
act of baptism, but in the faith and life of the one being baptized.
For some, baptism is like a T-shirt given to them by their parents after
their parents have been on a trip. It may make a statement about their
parents’ faith, but it says nothing about their own.
The Bible teaches that baptism is an outward sign of something that God
does in our hearts. St. Paul wrote, "Don’t you know that all of us who
were baptized were baptized into his death? In the same way count
yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Romans
6:3,11)
Paul Jetter, Upper Valley Community Church |
