ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN WORSHIP 2 28.LW2 Captioning provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ******** >> PAUL: How is the concept of the eighth day related to baptism? >> DR. ARTHUR JUST: I believe I mentioned this before, Paul, when I talked a little bit about the fact that in the early Christian churches, many of the baptismal fonts were eight-sided. But I think we need to say that what early Christians understood about baptism was that it was related to circumcision on the eighth day. Circumcision was the way in which you entered into the Covenant of Israel. Baptism is now the way in which you enter into the Christian church. And both of them were entrances into these communities that were characterized by their sense of eternity. Baptism is, as I said before, the place where we get death over with. This is where we are drowned in the waters of holy baptism, dying with Christ, buried with him as Paul says in Romans 6, rising with him to a life that never ends. Baptism is where we enter now into eternity because we are joined with Christ, we are in communion with him. And that's why Christians in the early Christian communities made their fonts eight-sided because they wanted their people to understand that this was eternal space. I always like to illustrate it from Star Trek. When you enter into the waters of baptism, it's like beam me up. There I am just lifted right now into heaven itself. I will never die again, even though I will physically die. That simply is an entrance like when that starship kind of put in those extra boosters. That's where we just get shot now into a life that is eternal. We are eternal beings because we have been joined with Christ in baptism. And those eight sides, that eight-sidedness, gives us a sense of how we enter into eternity. There are many examples of these fonts throughout the Christian church. In fact, many of the fonts that are now being built are eight-sided. The one here in this chapel here at St. Louis seminary is eight-sided as well as the one we have in the space that we have designated as baptismal space in our chapel in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. This is a wonderful statement to us of who we are in Christ as his baptized ones. And to be able to see this wonderful parallel with circumcision and to see this recognition that on the eighth day, Christ brings forward eternity and through these eight-sided walls in the early baptistry or the eight-sided font we enter eternity, too. It's a wonderful way of understanding who we are. Luther was very conscious of this and he has a wonderful citation in connection with the circumcision of John the Baptist that acknowledges that he understood the eighth day as being the eternal one. This is the day of resurrection. This is the day that knows no end. This is the day that goes on and on. This is who we are as those who are baptized into Christ.