The waters of baptism are the primordial waters where God creates. In Confirmation classes I would tell kids to think of everything they know about water, what it does, and how we experience it, and how it shows up in the Bible. They’d list a few: Jesus washed the disciples’ feet; crossing the Red Sea; Noah’s flood… Water exists in different forms; we need water to live; water washes things; it rains. When they’d run out of ideas I’d announce that every single thing we know about water can be a lesson about baptism. Baptism symbolizes how God gives us life and washes us clean and sets us free, how grace just rains down on us, how God we encounter God in different forms, how we’re called to serve, washing others’ feet … I’d repeat that everything about water can tell us something about baptism. Every single thing. That would spur them on to play one of my favorite games, Stump The Pastor: think of something about water that has nothing to say about baptism. They’d hit on erosion! (Yes, I’d say, grace strips some stuff away from us)… “Drowning!” (Yes, we die and are born again. In the early church you descended into a tomb-shaped pool, were pronounced dead, then rose up out of the water as a new person with a new name! And speaking of being born again, baptismal water is God’s water breaking.)… “Tears.” Yes, God shares our pain. The junior high boys would get more adventuresome. “Sweat!” Yes, Baptism promises the Holy Spirit will be in you to do the hard work of loving your neighbor as yourself and loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and muscles. Finally they would get to the good stuff. “Pee!” they would announce triumphantly. Yes, I’d say, aren’t you glad you can? Isn’t it cool God made us so we can absorb the good stuff from life and flush the rest? That’s how grace works. Play with the imagery. Water can tell us many, many things about baptism.

Baptism isn’t a badge of honor for Christians, or a membership token. It’s an experience of transformation, of death and re-birth, re-creation. It’s not a profession of faith; that would be more like John’s baptism, a gesture of repentance. It’s not anything we do, it’s something we receive from God. It’s a symbol of how we drown in God’s grace, and lose our old self-enclosed selves, and then God’s water breaks and God births us to a new life. Our little individual self-enclosed “self” dies; and we are reborn as a part of the Body of Christ. This is a never-ending process, so it’s good to remember our baptism, and to renew our baptismal vows regularly.

At Jesus’ baptism the “heavens are torn open.” Like the curtain in the temple being torn in two at his crucifixion, the moment speaks of the destruction of the boundary between the daily and the divine. Baptism suggests that the realm of God is right here in this person being baptized. The descent of the Holy Spirit reinforces that. God is present in this person.

Most Christians need to refine their theology of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not a bird or ghost that comes and goes. It’s God. It’s always here. And it’s not confined to Christians. It’s in everybody. Despite the way it’s worded in Acts— “the Holy Spirit came upon them”—you don’t “get” the Holy Spirit at baptism. It’s always there. Baptism is a symbol, a representation, of the Spirit that is always there. What changes is that we accept it, we receive it. Baptism is an invitation to allow the Spirit to guide us, to control our lives.

Jesus hears the promise of God’s love and blessing. “You are my son, my Beloved” quotes Psalm 2, referring to the Messiah. “With whom I am well pleased” quotes Isaiah 42, referring to God’s suffering servant. Until Jesus’ followers thought about it no one had ever imagined that one person might fulfill both roles of suffering and Messiah; but they realized Jesus was a suffering Messiah! The blessing is not only a “naming” of Jesus. It’s also a claiming. God is saying, “You are mine. No matter what.” My children are mine and always will be no matter what evil they suffer or evil they do. Just so, we are God’s beloved, God’s children, no matter what evil we may suffer or what evil we may do. Baptism announces God’s blessing for us, and God’s claim on us. We all need to hear these words often. Baptismal renewal is a way to accomplish that.

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© Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light 
www.unfoldinglight.net
All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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