Step into the Water

Immersion is not a word we use often except, perhaps,  in terms of learning a new language.  Some people learning a new language will take a trip to the country of language origin to immerse themselves in the culture of native speakers.  Their native language would yield to the new language. One might feel they were swimming in the unknown language and culture.  Immersion helps the new learner identify with the native speakers as understanding developed.

Immersion implies being covered over, dipped, or dunked rather than sprinkled.  Immersion and baptism are inexorably linked.  Baptists carry in their very name the idea of being submerged in water as a demonstration of their faith, baptism.

Jesus identified himself as fully human. He was born of a woman. (John 3) Jesus’ humanity submerged beneath the washing of water by the word, the baptism of repentance preached by John  (Matthew 3:15). Human beings have carried the sin principle in themselves since the first parents sinned in the garden of Eden.  Sin, missing the mark, necessitated a penalty for disobedience and a sacrifice.  Although Adam and Eve tried to hide their sin by making clothing of fig leaves, they were naked before God when he came to visit walking in the garden in the cool of the evening.  God himself killed an animal (sacrifice for their sin) and used the skin to make coverings for their nakedness.  The sacrifice covered their sin like immersion covers the body in the word, the one true sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.  Like Abraham said to Isaac on Mt. Moriah.  God will provide himself a lamb.  He did:  a ram caught in a thicket became the sacrifice instead of his son, Isaac.  

Water coordinates with the word. Ephesians 5:26: Jesus keeps his brides clothing white by the washing water by the word.  He was more than immersed in the word, he was the word made flesh.  The immersion in water represented being washed in the word, and He was the word.

Sometimes we’re so quick to identify believers with Jesus, they are never really immersed.  Although new believers are baptized in water, they are not really dunked in the water of the word.  They are really only sprinkled with the water of the word.  They have a seed of the word (The parable of the sower in Matthew 13) but the seed may only be rooted in shallow earth and gets burned in the heat of the day or choked out by the weeds of the deceitfulness of riches or the cares of this life.  They are not immersed in the water of the word.

Peter’s response to Jesus’ request to wash his feet, don’t wash my feet. John 13:8. But Jesus knew without foot-washing Peter would have no identification with Christ. Well, wash me all over, he implored. Bathe me. Immerse me.   Peter had been with Jesus since the beginning, he had been immersed in his teaching.  Once you’ve been bathed. Once you’ve been immersed. You don’t need to keep on being baptized day after day, you just need a little foot-washing.  

A person born of a woman (of water) in the story of Nicodemus in John 3  must be born not of water and of the spirit as well (John 3:3, 5, 6).  We must all be born again. (2 Timothy 2:13)

An old gospel song urges, “Step into the water, Wade out a little bit deeper”.  (Ezekiel 47:1-12) Get immersed.  Don’t just be an ankle Christian, or a knee Christian, take the plunge into the deep water where you have no ability to control your circumstances.  There we learn to trust Jesus, take Him at his word, rest in His promises.  Trust the word more and more and the physical, the bottom, where you maintain control,  less.

(Cathy Bayert is pastor of Greybull First Baptist Church.)