Blimey, Baptism!
It's been heard before; this post does not even need retelling. For years and years, and in whatever Judeo-Christian denomination there is, baptism has formed part of every believer's life. Beginning with in the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, seeking a place to dwell. The earth was yet an empty abyss. God couldn't resist sharing His ingenuity and goodness, and so, as I am told, propagated the process of creation.
He formed the first pair of humans, after his very own image and likeness: talking and thinking and tri-partite with a body, soul and living spirit. Sadly, we know how the story goes. Adam and Eve were deceived by the cunning serpent, and since then, humanity fell into sin, and their spirit died along with it. Thankfully, God has masterfully intervened with our dreadful state, and in episodes of history has appeared to bring forth salvation.
Take for instance the sweat of the brow labored by the Hebrews under Egypt's heavy hand for 400 years. Living in dire circumstances, I'd like to imagine how most of them had been frail and thin. In God's mercy, He appoints Moses to take the Israelites out of Egypt into a promised land brimming with milk and honey. Led by Moses, they escape the place after Pharaoh finally obliges to release them. While on the way, Pharaoh changes his mind and decides to recapture the Israelites. Meanwhile, out on the road, God's chosen people are grid-locked in tension after seeing the Red Sea before them. Hearing the speed of the chariots from behind, they had no way of surviving this ordeal.
They could look back, of course. Look back to that old life that has dragged their bones and muffled their hope. Look back at the old way of life. Look back and find a pint of comfort. At least in Egypt, there were cucumbers, leeks, onions, garlic and fish. Right ahead there was just water. Can anything good come out of the endless waves ready to drown them?
Alas, Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and with that simple gesture, the Lord vaulted the waters, as in the beginning (Genesis 1:6), and the waters split in half. (Some scholars suggest part of the water were frozen in the ground so that the trenches would not find them tripping over. See Psalm 66:6 for reference.) Anyway, they passed through the Red Sea unscathed. Psalm 105:37 adds a richer story -among the tribes of Israel, not one was found sick.
The people of God will never be the same. They have crossed-over. God had mopped their past, however grueling. A whole new life stands ahead.
The Creation and Exodus are two parallel samples that speak volumes on baptism. Both illumine the mystery behind the famous sacrament. I'd like to share five of these elements.
1. Water and the Spirit
It is the Spirit of God that initiates water baptism to depict the spiritual one. He uses water as a palpable imagery to manifest His cleansing power to wash us from sin, and his transforming power to bring us from darkness into light.
Why water? Because it's wet, irrepressible, and messy. Sometimes, this is what's needed to have a clear conscience before God.
2. birthmark
The common lingo in Christian circles defines baptism as a public declaration of faith. This interesting ceremony is an outward gesture of what a believer has established within -the inward identification with Christ. Baptism is every believer's birthmark.
3. Death and Resurrection
Union with Christ meant being one with Him in His death, burial and resurrection. Death can be hard; It means letting go to a million versions and urges of the old self. Once pinned on the cross, a new life can emerge. A life that is superior and everlasting. Through water baptism, believers denounce the way of sin, Satan and all his works, and assent to the reality of the resurrection.
4. the sub-immersers
As with any new birth, believers enter into this new life through the service of fellow believers, whose skillful hands of grace and love sprinkled or immersed them in water.
Nonetheless, it is Jesus that baptizes them in the Holy Ghost.
5. Ready or not
Some wait forever to do this, thinking that they aren't pure enough or holy enough. But I want to emphasize that baptism is not for the mature in faith, nor is it for those with flawless orthodoxy.
Baptism is the entrance to this new walk with Christ; and believe me, it is not hinged on readiness. The grace of God is not picky. It has the habit of choosing the odd ones in.
I think back to my own water baptism, at the pool on the upper penthouse of an ordinary building. Emerging from the cold with strangled short hair, I didn't feel any more holy or different than I had hoped. But what I do know is that God certainly was not disturbed by the little faith I used to carry. That day, an old seed inside me died, and He had the foresight to know what it could become.
