Baptism and the Waters of Transformation

We have talked about the Sea of Chaos and the River of Life, perhaps when we view baptism this way, we should think of it as the Water of Transformation.

Baptism Is about More than Just Conversion

In the New Testament, baptism came to symbolize the end of an old life and the beginning of the new as a believer was newly reborn into the family of God. But baptisms that accompany new belief in God are not the only baptisms in the Bible. Rather, biblical characters are always entering water and coming out transformed.

Though the New Testament has many examples of baptism accompanying new faith or repentance (John’s baptisms, the baptisms in Acts, the command to baptize all nations in the Great Commission), there are also examples of a wider definition of baptism.

Jesus’ first baptism in the river Jordan fits into this category. What did he need to repent of? And Paul stretches the mechanics and the meaning of baptism even wider when he declares in 1 Corinthians 10 that all of Israel was “baptized into Moses” as they walked through the Red Sea and “under the cloud.” In Jesus’ day, pious Jews also practiced ritual immersion for purification and wealthy individuals might even have an immersion pool in their homes.

So on our quest to understand the image of water from Genesis to Revelation, we have to think of a broader definition of baptism than what might happen to new believers in a baptistery at church on Sunday. Baptism is about encountering transformation and cleansing in the water; it is about death and resurrection.

We have talked about the Sea of Chaos and the River of Life, perhaps when we view baptism this way, we should think of it as the Water of Transformation.

Examples of the Water of Transformation in the Bible

Genesis 7-9: The Land is Baptized

The story of creation begins in water and within seven chapters, the earth is submerged again. In the flood, God brings back the waters of chaos to cleanse and scour the earth, saving only a handful of animals and one family. In a sense, it is a baptism for the earth and for the occupants of the ark, who are inundated by the flood and emerge from it in new life. The author of Genesis is careful to draw connections between the pre-fall Eden and Noah’s new community. However, like in Eden, fruit is at the center of the reenactment of the fall.

Exodus 2: A Baby is Baptized

The first chapters of Exodus are a fast-paced tour of 400 years of history culminating with the birth and early years of Moses. Around the time Moses was born, Pharoah issued a mandatory death sentence on all Hebrew males. Moses’ mother had other plans. She made a papyrus basket for him and launched him out into the Nile. It is interesting to note that the word for this basket is the same one that is used for Noah’s ark and these two stories are the only places it pops up in the Bible. So just as God’s people were once saved in an ark, the one who will save God’s people is saved in an ark.

Moses’ mother made a desperate choice in desperate circumstances. Moses goes from danger to danger. It is a baptism of sorts as Moses is sent out into the water, in some ways as good as dead, however, the river becomes the threshold of a new life as he is found and saved by Pharoah’s daughter who just “happens” to be bathing in the Nile at the time. Given the fact that Moses’ sister was watching nearby and standing at the ready to get Moses’ mother to feed the child when he was found, we can assume that this is what Moses’ mother meant to happen.

Exodus 13: The Nation is Baptized

Death and life certainly meet in the midst of the Red Sea crossing.

The Israelites are in a tight place, with the Sea of Chaos in front of them and Pharoah’s army quickly approaching behind them. The Lord makes a way where there is no way and parts the water in front of them. The whole nation goes into the water and comes back out again. It is a key moment on their journey from being a nation of slaves to a kingdom of God’s people. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea; and they all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea…”

Joshua 3: The Nation is Re-Baptized

Before taking possession of the land of Canaan, the nation of Israel had to pass through the waters again. The crossing of the Red Sea was the keystone moment in the cultural and spiritual formation of the young nation and now the next generation—who were about to undergo very transformative struggles—needed to have their own “Red Sea moment” in the River Jordan.

Joshua, Moses’ right-hand man is now the leader of Israel, and he leads them to the brink of the river in flood. God tells Joshua that when the priests walk the Ark of the Covenant into the river, the water flowing from upstream will pile up in a heap and the water downstream will be totally cut off.

Remember that none of the currently living Israelites had gone through the Red Sea except for Joshua and Caleb. But they had heard the stories. However, God was continuing to shape and transform this wilderness generation for what they were about to do—starting with a passage through the waters.

2 Kings 5: An Enemy is Baptized

Naaman, the commander of the army of Aram, took a Hebrew child as a slave. When the girl discovered her captor had leprosy she mentioned that there was a prophet of her people who could cure him. This was during the time of Elisha, Elijah’s successor as prophet to Israel. Naaman found his way to Elisha surrounded by expensive gifts and in full military pomp but when he came to the prophet’s house he found something unexpected. Instead of a man of power ensconced in the trappings of power, he found a humble house. Elisha didn’t even come out to see Naaman but sent a servant with instructions to wash in the river Jordan seven times. Naaman is insulted. He thought a greater fuss would be made over him. What was so special about the Jordan? He left in a rage until his own servants took him aside and said, “Hey… why don’t you give it a try?”

As with many of the stories of the waters of transformation, Naaman is reluctant to be transformed, even though it could mean that he is healed, the very thing he is seeking. Naaman’s servants persuade him to do what Elisha said and his flesh is restored “like that of a little child” (continuing the theme of the inversion of power in this story).

Unlike many baptisms in the New Testament, Naaman’s baptism is not the result of a conversion. Rather, his conversion is the result of his baptism. When he is healed, he rises from the water saying, “Now I know there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”

Jonah: A Reluctant Prophet is Baptized

Jonah’s story has a lot of symbolic, literary action. The movement in Jonah is always down, down, down (down to the sea, down into the bottom of the boat, down beneath the waves, etc.) until he has his revelation inside the sea monster and then it is up, up, up.

He is in flight from the Lord and the unappealing mission that God has given Jonah. His flight finally leads him to the bottom of the sea. However, in a surprising turn of events, the sea of chaos is the place where Jonah finally has the awakening he needs. The sea is the place of death and exile but for Jonah it becomes the place of life and repentance.

Echoing Psalm 42, Jonah prays from the belly of the monster, “All your waves and breakers have passed over me… I have been cast out of your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again to your temple [because]… salvation is from the Lord.”

So Jonah is baptized in the sea of chaos and emerges after three days a (somewhat) new man.

Mark 10: God is Baptized (Again)

In Mark 1, Jesus begins his ministry by being baptized by John. However, in Mark 10, Jesus alludes to a second baptism when he asks James and John if they can “be baptized with the baptism I am going to be baptized with?”

The pair have come to him to ask a favor. They would be his lieutenants when he comes into his kingdom, one at his right hand and one at his left. Jesus challenges their assumptions about the nature of power by using two images of his own suffering—a cup and a baptism—to ask them if they are really ready for that. They quickly declare that they are ready, hardly knowing that he is talking about his own death and resurrection.

But why does Jesus talk about his own death as a baptism?

If you think about it in terms of the symbolic meanings inside the biblical image of water, it makes sense. Baptism is where the waters of life and death meet.

Death was always chasing biblical characters into the water. Naaman’s death by leprosy. Israel’s re-subjugation at the hands of the Egyptians. Jonah’s death in the storm. Baby Moses’ death by the Pharoah’s edict against the Hebrew babies. And Christ’s death on the cross for the world he loved.

But God’s people found life instead of death in the water. It is almost as if the meaning of water changes polarity once they are inside it—from the end to a new beginning, from the sea of chaos to the river of life. As we have seen, the image of water points toward both realities, death and life.

What better concept is there than baptism to capture this? Naaman emerges from the river Jordan with skin as clean as a newborn child. Israel emerges from the Red Sea free and singing. Jonah realizes that in the depths of his own need, God is still with him. Once his feet are on dry land again, he is ready to set out for Nineveh. Moses is raised in the household of the very one who had tried to kill him and whom he would one day overthrow.

The resurrected Jesus opens the leaguer of new life and becomes the spearhead of the new creation invading the old.

And the Church Is Baptized Too

Maybe this is why the rite of baptism became so central a concept for the church as well.

Paul reaches for the same metaphor to describe what happens to God’s people when they turn to belief in Christ:

”Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for the one who has died is freed from sin.” (Romans 5:2-6)

Heady stuff. Paul carries over Christ’s association with crucifixion and baptism and applies it to the life of the church.

The fall chased us into the waters of death and we were buried there. However, death became a baptism—a doorway to new life—because, just like Christ, we did not stay in the tomb. We were united with him both in death and in new life. It is a powerful image of what it means for a human person to acquire “the likeness of his resurrection.”

And just like the rest of the biblical characters who entered the waters of transformation, there is new wholeness (the land after the flood), new life (Moses), new freedom (Israel), a new body (Naaman), and a new mission (Jonah) on the other side.