BAPTISM INTO WHAT?

How well I remember the night! Though it’s been a long time I can vividly recall making the Confession before a packed house in a little one room clapboard church building as wasps dive-bombed and plump ladies tried generating air movement with paper fans supplied by a local funeral establishment. It was mid-July, and in mid-Kentucky it was hot! About 45 minutes after the service broke we gathered at a neighbor’s cattle pond and there, in the headlight beams of a few cars, I was baptized. (I won’t tell you how old those cars would be now but will tell you if you own one you’re holding a valuable, big-bucks vehicle).

I recall the preacher saying something like “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…” (Actually, he probably said “Holy Ghost” as the King James Version of the Bible was the only one we knew). Later that evening, as I lay in bed being serenaded by a symphony of crickets, I waited for the old house to cool enough for sleep to come. But mostly I was deep in thought about what I had just experienced. I had the uncanny feeling I had just been “transitioned” from something into something. But what, to be sure, I wasn’t sure.

At age 30 Jesus came to the Jordan River and the spot where his first cousin, John, was baptizing, Mark 1: 9-11. Here Jesus was baptized by immersion (“He came up out of the water”…it was the mode of baptism practiced by the Essenes (John) and other Jews of the time…and yes, I do think it’s important). But as Jesus stood dripping in the very H2O He had created so long ago, Mark says “…He saw heaven being torn open (italics mine) and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove.”

The “tearing open” of heaven suggests a transition to a new era. And lest we miss it…when something is opened it can be closed again, but when “torn open” can never be closed again! What’s torn, stays torn, stays open. On that day God was opening a way to heaven…through His Son!

Jesus’ baptism in water that day had nothing to do with personal repentance from sin, but it did mark the beginning of the three and one-half year trek to His other baptism—His crucifixion. In its most basic sense baptism represents a metaphorical identification with someone or something. On the day He was baptized in water, Jesus identified with me—a sinner. And shortly thereafter, alone for forty days and nights in the wilderness, He was tempted to become me, the sinner. He didn’t, and I am so glad!

I think I see it a little better now. On that sultry July night I was baptized as a sinner into both Jesus’ water baptism (in which He identified with me, the sinner) but especially into His other baptism, the Cross, on which the spotless Lamb of God sealed my pardon with His blood, Romans 6:3,4! And as only God could, in the same eternal stroke added me to His Church, that invisible Kingdom composed of the hearts of believers over which Jesus reigns in sovereignty, Acts 2:38-47. (Yes, the church does have lots of visible expressions…perhaps you know one? If not, the redeemed but still imperfect folk at Christ Family Church would love to have you visit).

But now, “baptism into what” carries a whole new precious meaning. I hope it does for you as well. If you’ve never been baptized, you should be, into the likeness of Jesus’ death and resurrection, 1 Peter 3:21. And one other thing: you shouldn’t put it off!

julian