'76 Pinto

There are a million products in this world that make little or no sense to me.  One of them would air fresheners with a new car scent.  Supposedly you put this thing in your car and it makes the interior smell like it did the day it landed on the showroom floor.  Why a person would want this odor wafting through their car I do not know.  I guess my indifference has to do with not owning that many new cars and thus being deprived of their intoxicating aroma.  Used cars have their own unique smells (my favorite being 8 year old McDonald's french fries) which, for some reason, Yankee Candle has not tried to replicate.  Another reason I have not purchased one of these air fresheners is that some smells you just can't cover up.  As proof I humbly offer up the 1976 Ford Pinto.
In case you are not familiar with our friend the Pinto it was, and is, a running (when it runs) joke.  The Pinto is famous for all the wrong reasons.  Seems the engineers at Ford designed this vehicle in such a way that if it gets hit in a rear-end collision there is a better than decent chance the gas tank will explode.  Not cool.  I have been in a rear-end collision.  It was not in a Pinto, which may help explain why I survived the accident.  Like many things in the 70s, including polyester leisure suits, disco, and Stagflation, the Pinto is better left in the past.  If you are still driving a '76 Pinto I have some bad news for you - aint no amount of new car scent going to cover up the stench from that death mobile.
There is a great scene in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou.  You can see it by clicking the link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_bhD0_Trw
Delmar gets baptized believing that somehow this act will cleanse him of all of the wrong things he has done.  A few scenes later the newly redeem Delamr and his friends rob a bank.  Delmar treats baptism like one of those new car scented air fresheners, unaware, or unwilling to admit that a broken life that is not healed remains broken.  A '76 Pinto is still a '76 Pinto, no matter how new it smells.
The Christian faith boldly proclaims that in and through Jesus Christ we find new life.  Baptism is a symbol of that new life, a way to tell the world of our intention to become a  follower of Jesus.  Through serving others, growing into a relationship with God and taking full advantage of the gift of community our lives are transformed and healed.  Discipleship is a process, a life-long journey, not a one-time event.  Rather than mask the smell of our past mistakes baptism helps us understand that God is at work redeeming all that we have done.  That redemption may take days, weeks, months, years or may even extend well past our own lifetime.  Yet God will always find a way to create life.  Even from a '76 Pinto (it's called recycling).
Faith is not about covering up or telling ourselves that something old is really new.  It is about living life in all of its fullness.  I hope that today you may experience a little faith and a whole lot of life.  It is so much better than that new car scent.  Or a '76 Pinto.