Water in Baptism

Water is both regenerative and destructive. Water is vital to the growth of crops, the cleansing of bodies, one of the most essential elements to sustain human life. However, it can also serve to destroy. Through floods, tsunami's, or backyard pools, water may take life as easy as isure as it gives it. The impact of water, the most plentiful and powerful element on the planet has the ability to change the world. Water serves to bring forth life, it cleanses and reshapes, and it has the power to destroy. It is no wonder that water plays such a central roll in scripture.

Water's unique role both in creating and sustaining life on this planet and God's use of water to recreate and sustain us as people who are "born again". It's estimated that there is 326 million trillion gallons of water on this planet. Is it any wonder that God would use the most common element on the planet as a mechanism to communicate his love and grace to his creation? God's message of love and grace is constantly brought to our attention through the centrality of water in our lives.

In Genesis 1:2 we find the "Spirit of God hovering over the waters". The waters were separated in Genesis 1:6 as God said, "Let there be and expanse between the water to separate water from water." The sky and ground were created and then in Genesis 1:9 God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear." In this way we see the earth itself born of water and of the Spirit of God, an image that is repeated Jesus' language in John 3:5, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."

Jesus, the word in creation brings forth life. As water springs from the ground the garden of Eden it flows to the rest of the earth, we see the indication of the blessing of life that spreads to the world. Genesis 2:6 says, "and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground". Before sin entered into the world there was no rain. The picture of washing and cleansing that rain provides was not necessary until sin enters into the world in Genesis 3. Rain becomes a picture of the agent of cleansing to remove the impact of sin. God tells Noah in Genesis 7:4, "I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground." The Genesis flood illustrates how God uses water to cleanse the earth of sin. Noah and his family are preserved, an act of God's love and grace.

Moses escapes death and is given life as Miriam places him in the water. Water now becomes something that gives life. Instead of being drowned by Pharaoh, which was his plan, water became the source of life for Moses. Exodus 2:10 tells the story, When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, "Because," she said, "I drew him out of the water." Moses entered the water a slave and emerges a free man. In the same way we enter the water of baptism with a sentence of death and we emerge alive in Christ.

As the Israelites face what they believe to be certain death at the Red Sea, God rescues them as they pass through the waters of the Red Sea. They enter the water slaves and emerge as a free people as their pursuers are defeated in the water. Pharaoh and his armies are destroyed. Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 10:2, "and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea".

The imagery of passing through water to receive the promise is seen again as passing from the wilderness through the waters of the Jordan into the land flowing with milk and honey.

Water's power to cleanse becomes a central doctrine of God's presence among the Israelites through the Tabernacle. One can strive and strive to keep something clean, but everything gets dirty. This serves as an illustration of our life in a sinful world. The Levitical Law, illuminates the dirt, the unclean, and also the procedures for ceremonial cleansing. The cleansing, or baptisms, also extends to everything from mildew on walls, Leviticus 14:33-53, to purification after child birth - Leviticus 12:1-8, to acceptance of a healed "leper" back into the community - Leviticus 13:1-36, 14:1-32.

We are drawn out of "many waters" Psalm 18:16; saved from waters around our necks, 69:1. At the same time trees planted by streams of water bear fruit, 1:3; we are led by still waters,