Through Water

Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22

Noah, Jonah, Moses, and Joshua, are all Hebrew Bible stories that prefigure baptism, just as Peter wrote of Noah.  All of them had to go through water.  As I remember from Sunday School (as a youth and teacher) all of these stories are taught to our kids with a very joyful sentiment.  Noah especially with the pictures of perfect arks with giraffe heads sticking out.  I was obsessed with whales as a child so I truly enjoyed the story of Jonah and had a picture of a smiling whale to remind me of that Bible story.  The Exodus and entry into the promise land was not as colorfully told, but it too was taught with the respective happy “endings.” When they crossed the Red Sea and then into the Promised Land across the Jordan.

Well as adults we realize these Hebrew stories are much more dark and scary.  Noah had the hard work of building this ark.  Being questioned by neighbors and then seeing them all perish.  Even though God told him to build it, and that He would send that much rain, Noah and his family did not know what the future held for them and in the meantime were dealing with the reality of an arc filled with animals.  (Not fun and certainly scary).

Jonah thought he was going to die when thrown into the sea and probably thought the large fish would end his life quicker.  I am sure he thought he was dead.  It was not like the scene in Pinocchio.  Then he was spit out (the nice way to say it) and had to do the work he did not want to do.  He then struggled with God who had saved him.

Moses and all the Hebrew people heard the chariots coming.  They were correct in thinking they were going to die.  And even when they crossed the Red Sea they had 40 years of wandering, until the next generation was led across the Jordan into the Promised Land.  A land inhabited which they would struggle to establish Israel and Judah.   The salvation did not wipe away all their troubles.

These are stories that prefigure baptism and should.  On this Sunday we remember all those that served our Country and laid down their lives for others.  They are great heroes.  While I was a chaplain in a large metropolitan hospital I met many men who had served along side those that gave their lives in WWII.  Inevitably they would talk about the war, and about those that died in their youth fighting for freedom.  Many had not shared some of these stories with their family, and a common theme was the guilt of coming home.  They held with them the death of many of their friends and came home to live not only for themselves but for those the laid their lives down for us all.

The best image of war (better yet worst) is that of D-day.  The images I had seen always spook me, that men would jump out into the water and proceed through water and fire from the Germans inch by inch.  I can imagine that some of the soldiers would watch their comrade die and would take their memory of them on with them, some of them inches or feet and those few I met years latter the rest of their lives. 

According to Paul this is exactly what baptism should be as he writes in Romans 6:3-4:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

We are baptized into Jesus’ death.  We bring the scary aspects of the four Hebrew Bible Stories into our lives as we are saved.  We are not baptized to a life that is perfect.  We are baptized into a Jesus’ death so we might see the newness of life.  We will suffer, but we will know the eventual promise.  We will hold onto what Jesus did for us so we may live.  Just as those soldiers lived out their lives for their fallen comrades, but it was Jesus’ death and resurrection that saved them from guilt as well as sin.