“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:13-17, ESV)
A Simple Invitation
Naaman was an accomplished man. I can see him in the power suit, with the power tie. A man accustomed to money, power, and authority. Major needs, he probably thought, could only be fixed with major accomplishment. So when he comes down with leprosy, Naaman pulls out all the stops. Can you see him looking for the uber expensive miracle cure—the kind that can only be found by climbing the highest mountain to pick a lotus flower to extract the serum that would save his life?
But the story takes an interesting turn. Instead of a call to risk his life, he hears this simple invitation: “Come to the water.” Wash in the Jordan river. The muddy Jordan river. The simple, ordinary Jordan river. Go dip in it seven times, and you will be clean.
Naaman can’t believe it. The problem is not that the call is too much. The problem, it seems, is that the call is too little. “I’ll go to the ends of the earth to fix what is broken in my life,” Naaman thinks to himself, “but I won’t come to the water.”
His servant points out the problem. If it was something great, you wouldn’t hesitate. But since it’s something simple, you won’t budge?
“If it was something great, you wouldn’t hesitate. But since it’s something simple, you won’t budge?”
Naaman gives it a try. He dips seven times, and when he arises from the water, he is healed. Seven times reminds us of the seven days of creation. His flesh was restored to him like a newborn baby—which reminds us of rebirth. Naaman’s baptism is a story of new life and new birth. He arises a new creation—after accepting such a simple invitation to come to the water.
Only the power was not in the water. There is no power in muddy rivers. The power—then and now—is in the God who meets us there. “Baptism no more cleanses sin than the Jordan river cleanses leprosy,” says a fellow preacher. That’s true. The power is in God who meets us there.
See baptism as a simple invitation: a call to RSVP a rendezvous with God. This is not about how or why we are afforded grace—for the answer to that is God and God alone. But rather, a time and place where God calls for us to meet: I believe the God of all creation meets us in our baptism.
A Consistent Invitation
This ancient practice involves someone putting your body under the water and raising you back up. The rich language of Scripture connects the power God, the grace of Christ, the story of rescue, the saving blood, and the sanctifying Spirit to what we experienced when we accepted that simple invitation.
When I think of baptism, says the apostle Peter, I think of Noah and the great flood. The world that represented all that was wrong became submerged in the waters. The world that then was (says Peter in the New Testament) perished. Everybody drowned. Except a few. They were safe in the ark. But the ark was an enclosed space, so it also seemed fitting to Peter as an apt description: the water that drowned the evil in the world provided safe passage and cleansing for those who would come out the other side. While the entire population were destroyed by the water, Peter says eight souls were saved by the water. And that makes him think of baptism. “Baptism does also now save us,” he says. Not that a bath saves. But like Noah who pledged loyalty to God, we too allow the waters of baptism to testify to our pledge to Jesus as we are lowered into the water, drowning the old me. And as we come safely through onto the other side, like Noah and his family we begin a new life in what is, for us, a brand new world.
“As we come safely through onto the other side, like Noah and his family we begin a new life in what is, for us, a brand new world.”
When I think of baptism, says the apostle Paul, I think of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. The waters parted and they were engulfed by walls of water on both sides. There was a cloud overhead, so they were overwhelmed—completely surrounded by water and cloud. And there was a leader to whom they gave their full allegiance: Moses. And there was spiritual food and drink awaiting them on the other side, all of which symbolized the provision of God as the one who rescues. Reminds me, says Paul, of baptism. Our ancestors, writes Paul,
“were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4, ESV)
When I think of baptism, says the author of Hebrews, I think of the floating tabernacle: the tent of meeting where the priests went to meet God. They would take it down and set it up whenever they made camp. But before the priests could go in to the holy tabernacle, they would wash themselves in the laver—wash completely (Leviticus 8:6). And they would sacrifice an animal and sprinkle the blood on them as a sign of the Passover, that God was overlooking the faults of the people, choosing not to abandon but to dwell with people washed, and washed in the blood.
“Before the priests could go in to the holy tabernacle, they would wash themselves in the laver—wash completely.”
Reminds me, says the Hebrew writer, of baptism. Our high priest is Jesus Christ. By making a single offering of himself, a lamb without blemish, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (Hebrews 10:14). “Therefore,” he continues,
“…Since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:19-22, ESV)
A Christ-Imitating Invitation
There are so many connections, so many allusions, so many stories in the history of God’s people that could be drawn on to answer the question, “Why should I be baptized?” I want to draw your attention to the Gospels and answer simply: because your Lord Jesus Christ asks you to. He is extending an invitation. Come to the water. Follow Jesus there.
First, baptism is a Christ-imitating invitation.
“Come to the water. Follow Jesus there.”
The text is Matthew 3. John is baptizing. So much so, it became his nickname. He tells people to separate themselves, to be marked-out people of promise, awaiting the Messiah. Now, when the Messiah comes, he’ll do his own baptism—a baptism of spirit and fire. But this is simply joining the long tradition of people of God called by God to venture out in faith, to cross over, into a new life.
And then…here comes Jesus. Requesting baptism. This is shocking for John (and perhaps shocking for us). John was asking people to confess their sins and receive forgiveness. And John had just said Jesus would come as a baptizer, not a recipient. So why does Jesus submit to baptism, when he had committed no sins?
There are many good answers. He is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world, and in Leviticus (1:9, 13), the Lamb is washed before the sacrifice. He is the new Moses, called to lead his people out of the Egypt of sin and into the land of promise. God had called all of Israel to “come to the water.” He had done it many times before. And all those times before, God’s representative, his spokesperson, not only obeyed the voice of God, but he led the people through the water. There are many good answers. But the text brings out just one: Christ says we must do this “to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus said: “it is right for me to seek you out and be baptized. I must do all that is right.”
“He is the new Moses, called to lead his people out of the Egypt of sin and into the land of promise. God had called all of Israel to ‘come to the water.'”
Just think of it, says a Christian writer in the second century:
“To think of the infinite river that gladdens the city of God being bathed in a poor little stream; of the eternal and unfathomable fountainhead that gives life to all men being immersed in the shallow waters of this transient world! He who fills all creation, leaving no place devoid of his presence, he who is incomprehensible to the angels and hidden from the sight of man, came to be baptised because it was his will.”
The text says that God was pleased when Jesus came to the water, and he was pleased that Jesus fulfilled the Father’s will. And God called Jesus his Son.
In this story, writes Rich Lusk,
“We have the ultimate paradigm for understanding God’s work in baptism. Jesus received the Spirit in fullness at his baptism, and was declared to be the beloved Son of the Father. With appropriate qualifications, this is what God does in our baptisms as well: He pours out his Spirit upon us and declares us to be his dearly loved children.”
Jesus’ baptism is the most important baptism. Perhaps, in a sense, it is the only baptism. In the words of one preacher, “Behind every baptism of a believer is the baptism of Jesus.”
“Behind every baptism of a believer is the baptism of Jesus.”
A Christ-Affirming Invitation
Second, baptism is a Christ-affirming invitation. Our Lord filled baptism with meaning and substance. And you need to turn to the Gospel of John to appreciate its full effects.
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me holy? Nothing but the Spirit of God. But listen as Jesus connects washing of blood and cleansing of the Spirit with the powerful imagery of our baptism in water. In fact, “water” appears 1, 2, or 3 times in most New Testament books. In John, it appears some 20 times. “Wash” appears 1, 2, or 3 times in most New Testament books. In John, it appears some 10 times.
In John 1, Jesus is baptized. John connects the Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world, and the coming of the Spirit with Jesus’ entrance into the water.
John 2, on the heels of John the baptizer who 3 times in chapter 1 says, “I do water, but Jesus will do Spirit stuff,” tells us of a wedding in Cana, where there are large stone jars of water used for washing. Jesus turns this water into great-tasting, overwhelming, mind-altering new wine given out at the wedding supper. It’s hard not to see this as a metaphor for Christ giving the Holy Spirit. It was Paul who said “do not get drunk on wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And John connects water and spirit.
“John connects the Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world, and the coming of the Spirit with Jesus’ entrance into the water.”
We see this spiritual partnership, this spiritual marriage of water and spirit throughout Jesus’ ministry and throughout the rest of the book of John.
The very next chapter, John 3, is where we meet Nicodemus. Jesus tells Nicodemus if a man would enter the kingdom of heaven, he must be born again. But just as Naaman received new birth—with childlike skin—as he arose from the water, to be born again, says Jesus, is to be born of water and Spirit.
The Greek construction suggests this is not two births of different elements, but one birth with two elements. Water and Spirit.
If you wonder how to interpret John 3:5, an excellent commentary is Titus 3:5. God, who is rich in mercy, saved us—not by any works of righteousness that we have done. (Remember, baptism doesn’t cleanse us of sin any more than the Jordan river cleanses us of leprosy. Only God does that.) But notice the next part of the verse: “He saved us by the washing of rebirth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Washing and Spirit.
We are born again of water and Spirit, says Jesus—a new birth reminiscent of Hebrews 10, where God infuses his Holy Spirit in our hearts as our bodies are washed with water.
“He saved us by the washing of rebirth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
Then we come to John 4. Here we meet a woman at a well. She has come to draw water. Jesus offers her living water, the water that will quench all thirst. The water that will become within her (and within us) a spring of water welling up to eternal life. And that, my friends, is the Holy Spirit. Water and Spirit.
In John 6, Jesus shows his power by walking on, striding over, and meeting the disciples in the water.
John 7 brings us to the last day at the Feast of Booths, when Jesus stood up and said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (7:38, ESV). And, John writes, “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive” (7:39a, ESV).
If we skip ahead to John 13, we see water and spirit continued. Jesus shows the spirit of humility when he pours water into a basin and washes feet to show his solidarity. “Unless I wash you,” says Jesus, “you have no share with me.” Peter gets the message and says, in essence, “If that’s what this is all about, wash it all! Head and hands as well.”
“Jesus offers her living water, the water that will quench all thirst.”
And in John 19, as the dead body of Jesus lay nailed to a cross, the soldiers stick a spear in the side of our Savior (in his death), and out of his side—in one death—flow two elements: blood and water.
Blood and water. Spirit and water. Jesus and water. The rich language, the rich metaphors, connect the one and only thing that can save me and make me holy with our simple invitation to come to the water.
A Christ-Commanded Invitation
Third, baptism is a Christ-commanded invitation. In Matthew 28, the risen Jesus, in his final message to his people, commands us to go and teach all nations, making disciples. In this commission, we are called to baptize others “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
“In the name of” is a management term: in baptism we come under new management. My ownership is being transferred to a new master. Paul will use the term “seal,” but he means by it the same thing Jesus means by “name.” We are branded, declaring forever to whom we belong. Baptism brands us with the Triune name of God: Father, Son, and Spirit.
Jesus was baptized. Jesus told us to be baptized. Jesus connected baptism with blood and spirit. And Jesus told us to baptize others. Can’t you see it? Jesus calls us to the water.
“Jesus was baptized. Jesus told us to be baptized. Jesus connected baptism with blood and spirit. And Jesus told us to baptize others.”
A Christ-Continuing Invitation
And he calls us still. Baptism is a Christ-continuing invitation. He continues to call us to the water.
The book I have in mind is the book of Revelation—a book we have incorrectly labeled “the Revelation of John” for far too long. Read the first verse. This is not the revelation of John. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ to his servant John. It is Jesus who is speaking, declaring, revealing, and calling.
And in the last chapter of the last book in our Bibles, Jesus calls us to the water. The same one who says “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,” says “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates” (Revelation 22:14, ESV). Washed in what? Revelation has already answered that question. In chapter 7, one of the elders around the throne says these who are robed in white have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14, ESV). They died, washed in blood. And they experienced a resurrection of sorts. A resurrection that is different from the final resurrection when our bodies will come out of a literal grave. In Revelation 20, we are told, “Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ” (Revelation 20:7).
“In the last chapter of the last book in our Bibles, Jesus calls us to the water.”
These verses are about Jesus. We know that. Baptism cannot wash away your sins any more than the Jordan River can wash away leprosy. Only the blood of Christ can do that. But to a first-century church that knew full-well that Jesus calls us to the water, the powerful imagery would be hard to miss. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all filth. We see it dramatically taught, explained and experienced when we, for the first time, take part in a washing of our own, and a resurrection of our own. In baptism, our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our lives are renewed by the Holy Spirit as we undergo the washing of rebirth, our bodies washed with pure water. A new birth, a new life, a new beginning. As Peter Williamson states in his commentary on Revelation:
“This blessedness is not the result of a perfect moral record…It belongs to those who turn from evil to God and receive cleansing and grace from the sacrifice of Christ through baptism and ongoing repentance.”
And, according to Jesus, being washed in the blood of the Lamb gives us the right to the tree of life, to partake of that by which we live forever, and to enter the city without foundations.
“According to Jesus, being washed in the blood of the Lamb gives us the right to the tree of life.”
Note that both the right and the access only come to those with washed robes—made clean by the blood of Christ, made holy by the Spirit of God. Outside the city (according to verse 15) are those who are characterized by the works of the flesh, but insiders are known as those scrubbed clean by the blood of Christ. Paul brings all of these elements together in 1 Corinthians 6:11. He lists all those same lifestyle characteristics, and says such will not inherit the kingdom of God. “But you were washed [in the name of Jesus], and you were made holy [by the Spirit of our God].” Washed and Spirit.
As the book of Revelation comes to a close, the voice of the beloved Son raises to a fever pitch:
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to you to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendent of David, the bright morning star. The Spirit and the Bride say ‘come.’ And let the one who hears say ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” (Revelation 22:16-17, ESV)
Follow Jesus To The Water
Nearly 500 years ago, Martin Luther wrote these words:
To Jordan came our Lord the Christ,
To do God’s pleasure willing,
And there was by Saint John baptized,
All righteousness fulfilling;
There did He consecrate a bath
To wash away transgression,
And quench the bitterness of death
By His own blood and passion;
He would a new life give us.
So hear ye all, and well perceive
What God doth call baptism,
And what a Christian should believe
Who error shuns and schism:
That we should water use, the Lord
Declareth it His pleasure;
Not simple water, but the Word
And Spirit without measure;
He is the true Baptizer.
To show us this, He hath His Word
With signs and symbols given;
On Jordan’s banks was plainly heard
The Father’s voice from Heaven:
“This is My well-beloved Son,
In whom My soul delighteth;
Hear Him.” Yea, hear Him every one
Whom He Himself inviteth,
Hear and obey His teaching…
The eye of sense alone is dim,
And nothing sees but water;
Faith sees Christ Jesus, and in Him
The Lamb ordained for slaughter;
She sees the cleansing fountain red
With the dear blood of Jesus.
Hear the call of Jesus: anyone who thirsts, come forward and receive the gift of life-giving water. The gift is Jesus, dramatically represented in our crossing-over experience of baptism. “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come” (Revelation 22:17a, ESV).
This is a sermon preached on April 14, 2023 at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) entitled “Come To The Water.” This lesson is available to watch or listen, and appears on the Life on the West Side podcast (Season 3, Episode 39).