The following is a true story, as told by the pastor who got the worst end of it. However, the names of the participants have been changed to protect the guilty.

Years ago in a town in middle Georgia, there lived an associate pastor at a Baptist Church whom we will call Brother Max. One day, he received a call from his pastor, Brother Jim. “I need your help, Max,” he said. “Judy accepted Christ, and I need you to help me baptize her.” Max understood the dilemma, because Judy weighed 500 pounds.

Added to the dilemma was the design of their church’s baptistry. The church had grown, and they had taken in the old baptistry area for a Sunday School class, and had relocated the baptistry in a corner of the worship center, next to another classroom. To enter the new baptistry, one had climb up a ladder, through the window of the classroom, and down another ladder into the water.

Brother Jim had been thinking over the situation and decided to put her in a chair and lean her back for the baptism. Thankfully, she was able to descend the ladder into the water. However, they did not think ahead about how much water would be displaced when two grown men were in there with a gigantic woman. Water started sloshing over the sides of the baptistry into the sanctuary, and more water poured into Brother Jim’s waders, which pretty much anchored him to the spot where he was standing.

Ignoring the chuckles of the congregation, they put Judy in the chair, but as they started to lean her back, the chair rose and she floated to the surface. Brother Jim whispered to Max these immortal words, which went over his microphone and were remembered years later by everyone: “Push down on her stomach!”

Max pushed, Judy got immersed, and more water splashed over the sides. Since Brother Jim was transfixed to his spot by the water in his waders, he asked Brother Max to help Sister Judy up the ladder and out of there. However, as Judy climbed up, she fell back, and Brother Max found himself grabbing her hips and hugging her behind with his face to keep her from falling back into the water. The giggles and chuckles in the congregation burst into outright laughter.

When I heard this story, I stopped Max and asked him, “Was this poor woman humiliated by all of this?” Max replied, “I don’t think so, because she looked back at me and snickered.”

Most of the time, when I tell these stories I end with a Bible verse to make a spiritual point. But this week, I can’t think of anything except Proverbs 17:22, NKJV: “A merry heart does good like medicine.”

Copyright 2009 by Bob Rogers. E-mail brogers@fbcrincon.com. For more “Holy Humor,” go to the Web site www.fbcrincon.com.