01/15/2023
Baptism, it is a death and resurrection in our spiritual lives, but as I read my morning devotional (Oswald Chambers) regarding it, I began to think about how baptism is much more than a symbol... it is actual death.
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:4 KJV
I watch the baptistery on Sunday morning's when people are baptized and I am excited about the prospect of this new life coming to the Lord. I concentrate on the birth, but there is a death occurring in those waters as well. This is the death of who we were and the birth of a new being in Christ.
Oswald Chambers writes of the seriousness of this moment in this way:
"We skirt the cemetery and all the time refuse to go to death. It is not striving to go to death, it is dying, "baptized into His death." - Oswald Chambers
Chambers refers to this as a "White Funeral." This is a funeral in which we bury the person we were and become, as it were, like the risen Christ. So in this event someone dies and a new person is born. If that isn't what we felt as the water rushed over us then we missed the enormity of the occasion.
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. At that moment his childhood self died and Jesus the Christ rose from the water. He was always the Son of God, but this act signified a change... a new life that would lead Him to suffering and a real death; then to resurrection. He was moving through the death of the law and all that had come before, and birthing what was to be... the fullness of grace.
“Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:13-17 KJV
Baptism changes us, it redirects our spiritual lives and it is a physical death and resurrection that causes our earthly selves to die and be reborn as into the new life of faith that Jesus brought forth. We are joining Him in the realization of prophesy and the infusion of grace into us.
So, when we are baptized we step into funeral waters where our bodies will be washed and prepared for burial, but when the "White Funeral" is complete, we rise into a new life from the waters of birth. The seriousness of this death should go with us into the water and the rebirth and dedication to God should rise with us from it.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for baptism and the death of who I was. I thank you for giving me a new life that is righteous and is more than merely checking off another task on my way to heaven... baptism is my becoming your child by birth, and the true beginning of my sanctification. Lord, lift up my spirit in faith and service to you and your will, but also lift my human body from the squalor in which it was mired and present it to those around me as a reflection of you. Lord let all see the man who rises from the waters of baptism as a new creature, and an image of your Son Jesus Christ.
Rich Forbes