Claytonius

There are just a few more biblical images I want to highlight about baptism. The first I have discussed already. It is found in Romans 6:

We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?…For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. (Romans 6:2b-3, 6-7)

The image Paul associates with baptism is dying. More than that, it is being crucified. These are such common terms in religious circles that sometimes we fail to see the violent force of these images. Baptism is a crucifixion of our old selves. It is a lynching, a bloody, brutal murder of our old selves. When we are baptized, our old self is killed. In the violence done to Jesus on the cross, we also are killed, that is, our old lives. Baptism enacts this death on us. Down into the water we go. We are buried. We die.

We see the image again in Colossians:

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:11-12)

This time the image of death and burial is connected with another bloody image, that of circumcision. The significance of this image, primarily, is in how circumcision functioned in the Old Testament. The ritual of circumcision is the way someone entered into the covenant with God in the Old Testament. It was the ceremony that made you a part of the Jewish community. So now, baptism does the same thing. In baptism, not circumcision, we are brought into covenant with God and union with God’s people. The image of circumcision is a violent, painful one. In circumcision, one is marked by the cutting of flesh.

Together, the images of crucifixion, burial, and circumcision show the harshness of baptism. The break between our old life and our new life is so sharp that it can be compared to death. Our old selves must be murdered. They must be cut off. We must make a very painful break with our old ways of thinking, living, and relating to God and the world. In baptism, God kills us. This is the only way that we can live a new life. It is a violent image.

But there is another image used for baptism. It is found in Paul’s instructions to husbands about how to treat their wives. Paul says that a marriage is to reflect the relationship that Christ has with his Church. Husbands are to love their wives self-sacrificially in the way that Jesus loved his people. In describing this, Paul elaborates on the way Jesus loves the Church:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

That image of washing with water is an allusion to baptism. First of all, note that it is connected to the word, that is the message of the Gospel. Baptism cannot be an empty ritual, it must be connected with the proclamation and belief in the Gospel. Otherwise, it is just a bath, not a baptism. Secondly and primarily, I want to highlight that the image of baptism is of Jesus washing his wife. Think about that. It is an incredibly intimate picture. It is a groom on his wedding night, gently and tenderly bathing his bride. Pay attention to the care, love and closeness in that. It is an act of supreme intimacy. In baptism, Jesus tenderly and lovingly washes us. He prepares us for himself, so that we can be presented in splendor, without blemish, holy and beautiful.

This is the love of Jesus! His touch murders me and cleanses me. I drown. I bathe. A burial and a wedding happen all at once. Oh, how he loves us. So tenderly, so violently.