Pastor Kyle Lake, 33, was electrocuted Sunday as he reached to adjust a microphone from the baptistery at University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. In a strange, accidental and senseless moment the young preacher was gone.

A Jonesboro, Arkansas television station ran a story questioning the safety of using microphones in the baptistery. One expert recommended a wireless mic powered by a 9-volt battery rather than wall current. No one is really sure what happened with the electricity in Lake’s situation.

While his death definitely seems weird, it must seem even more strange to people who are either not churchgoers or who belong to churches that sprinkle rather than submerge.

At my church we even submerge people who have already been sprinkled. Billy Graham was baptized three times, you know.

The rebaptism thing, and the import placed on the form was bothering me more until I learned that the word "baptize" is translated from an original Greek word meaning "to immerse." So it makes sense to dunk people.

But there are others who translate the word as "wash."

I tried to research this briefly on my own but it was all Greek to me. That is, nearly every single translation leaves some transliteration of the Greek word "baptizo," rather than changing it to a real English word.

I suspicion that since the method of baptism has prompted several different denominations and schisms of those denominations, that I may not be able to simply sit down and sort this out. I do think, however, that the method is really not the point. Like the Old Testament rituals of washing hands and cups, washing the outside isn’t really the thing, rather it is the cleansing of the heart.

"Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, …" (Psalms 24:3ff).

Pastor Lake is standing in that holy place now, immersed in the love of Christ and perhaps finally understanding things such as baptism, without a shadow of a doubt.