Have you seen the YouTube video of the boy doing the “cannonball” into the baptistery? The soaked pastor vows that this “first time” entrance into the water will be the “last time” that happens. Calvin Miller talked about baptizing a man who could not hear without his hearing aids. When Calvin asked the baptismal question, the man self-immersed and took Calvin with him. They saw the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots before they both surfaced, soaking wet. The man smiled and said to Calvin, “Thank you Pastor.”
Paul saw burial as a baptism into Christ’s death and a resurrection from the grave of sin. Immersion is a beautiful picture of this transformation, but the water does not save us. Salvation is found by immersing ourselves in the truth of the gospel: we are worse off than we thought, and more loved than we ever dreamed.
What did your baptism mean to you? Do you remember it? In the New Testament, we learn that faith should precede baptism. Paul saw it not as a sacrament which conveyed salvation, but as an outward sign of an inward grace. As such, baptism answers the question of whether we continue to sin after we become Christians. In baptism we die to sin so that we may live a brand new life. It is the pledge of a good conscience, saying to God, I turn from the death of sin so that I may live. As the singing group Rascal Flatts describes it, “I’ve been changed . . .” We have. No wonder we are no longer who we used to be!
