What is baptism all about? Why the symbolism of water? The New Testament points back to some Old Testament stories to help us understand. In this talk we consider the story of Moses in a basket in the Nile.
Baptism – Water and a new idenity
Today we baptised Mason and Hudson. But you may be wondering, what is baptism all about?
Although, it is a ritual that Christians have been practicing for 1000s of years,
do you really understand what it is all about? What is going on?
Two verses in the New Testament may give some clues.
First, our verse of the week. Jesus tells his disciples:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:19)
Why do we baptise people as Christians? Because Jesus tells us to! But notice, it is also done ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Today is Trinity Sunday, where we remember God is one but three persons. This is perhaps expressed most clearly in the name of God used in baptism: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One name, but three persons. This is the God of the Bible, the God revealed by Jesus Christ, who is the Son, the God who lives with us still by His Holy Spirit, the God who we speak to as our Father. Baptism in his name, is an outward sign of entering into a living relationship with this God. The name part is important. But why the water?
Well the New Testament gives a few different explanations for the water:
- it is a sign of cleansing, when we become a Christian, God cleanses us from our sins.
- it is a sign of death and re-birth – in that we are covered with water and come out the other side a new person. This links us with Jesus’s death and resurrection.
- it is also linked with some key stories of God saving his people in the Old Testament. In 1 Peter 3:20-21 it says,
“In the ark only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolises baptism that now saves you also…” (1 Peter 3:20-21)
Noah – Saved through water and a new identity
In fact the story of Noah tells how God took Noah and saved him through the great flood by telling him to build an ark. Noah believed God, built the ark and he and his wife and three sons and their wives went into the ark, along with lots of animals, so that when the flood came on the earth, they were saved when everyone else was drowned.
Then the flood subsided, the water dried up and Noah, his family and all the animals came out the other side – saved from the flood. At that point God entered into a new relationship with Noah, promising never to wipe out the whole earth again in the same way. The rainbow was given as a sign and symbol of that new promise and new relationship between God and his creation.
Noah and his family were saved through water and given a new relationship with God. This is reflected in baptism.
Moses – Saved through water and a new identity
The story, we had read to us earlier from the beginning of Exodus also involves someone being saved through water and coming into a new relationship. In fact we are told at the end of the story, that Moses’s new name means, ‘I drew him out of the water.’
At this time the people of Israel are living in Egypt. They have grown in number and the new Egyptian Pharaoh – that is the king of Egypt has become frightened that they might grow too powerful for the Egyptians and become an enemy within. He thus begins a process of persecution of the Israelites, not unlike the persecution of their descendants by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s.
It starts off with basic oppression, forcing the Israelites into harsh labour. But this does not work, they just keep increasing in number.
Then he tells the Jewish midwives to kill the baby boys when they are born. But the midwives fear God more than Pharaoh and refuse to obey. Making the rather silly excuse that Israelite or Hebrew boys are born too quickly so they are never there in time!! Pharaoh the powerful king of Egypt is thwarted by a couple of Israelite women!
So, Pharaoh tells his people to throw all Hebrew boys that are born into the Nile, but to spare the girls. This in itself is ironic, because in this story as with the midwives, it is the women that are the key to resisting Pharaoh’s plans! Three women in particular stand out in Exodus 2. Without them, Moses would have died at Pharaoh’s hands.
His Mother’s Faith
Firstly, there was his mother. For her this baby was a wonderful new creation and just as God says in Genesis 1, in the Creation narrative, ‘it is good’, so this mother like most mothers, looks at her newborn son and sees that “he is good”! This is a fine beautiful baby boy.
So, like most mothers she is desperate to protect him from the wicked rule of Pharaoh that wants him dead along with the other new-born baby boys.
At first she manages to hide him away. But as she grows this becomes more difficult.
So, in a desperate act of faith and hope that somehow God might save her child, she builds an ark. After all if God saved Noah from the flood through the ark, perhaps he can save her son from the Nile by an ark.
So, she obeys Pharaoh and throws her baby Hebrew boy into the Nile, but floating in an ark. Trusting the God that saved Noah through water in an ark, might also save her son, through water in an ark.
His Sister’s Courage
At this point the mother drops out of the story. It is only the babies sister left to watch the baby floating in the reeds of the great river. But she bravely does so. In the end, the sister’s courage in waiting around to somehow look after her baby brother in defiance of Pharaoh, will prove an indispensable part of the story.
His Enemy’s Daughter
Then Pharaoh’s daughter comes to the river. Now remember Pharaoh wants every Hebrew boy dead. Here is his daughter, enjoying all the luxuries of being part of his family and expected to be fully behind his policies coming down to the river just where the baby is floating.
Then she spots the basket and asks for it to be brought to her. She opens the basket and there is a baby!
If we didn’t know how the story works out, this is a moment of sheer jeopardy. Surely, Pharaoh’s daughter will obey her father’s orders and toss this baby – this child of the dangerous Hebrews into the river to drown.
But Pharaoh’s daughter does not act as her father would want. Rather she acts in line with the Hebrew midwives who feared the God of the Hebrews and did what was right.
What did Pharaoh’s daughter do?
- Shows Pity
First of all we are told that she felt sorry for the baby or showed pity. She saw this crying baby and her instinct was to spare it from the terrible massacre perpetrated by her father.
But at first all she says is, “This is one of the Hebrew babies.”
Does this simple phrase show that she is torn between obeying her father and showing pity?
At that moment, in a great act of courage, the sister steps in and makes a suggestion – “Shall I go and fetch one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” The sister maybe sensed that Pharaoh’s daughter was moved to show pity, but this was still a great risk – after all, Pharaoh’s daughter could have had her killed for making a suggestion that she defy her father in this way.
But, the daughters courage instead helps bring about Pharaoh’s daughters help. Pity for a crying baby wins out over obedience to a powerful father.
- Acts Generously
But not only does this woman show pity, she also acts generously. When the mother is fetched, she actually pays her to look after the baby! She goes above and beyond what is necessary merely to save, she now acts to positively bless the baby in complete defiance of her father’s aims.
- Adopts
And she goes further, she takes the boy and adopts him and gives him a new name: Moses, which means “I drew him out of water.”
She acts like God, she saves the baby from water, then enters into a new relationship with him.
Notice that Moses is a baby. He does nothing but cry. He owes his life, to his mother’s care and act of faith in God, his sister’s courage and Pharaoh’s daughter’s pity, generosity and adoption. All this is grace, a grace that ultimately comes from God. None of it is down to Moses himself.
Yet, God had plans for Moses. He would ultimately be God’s chosen leader of Israel.
Israel – Saved through water and a new identity
In fact, his birth story echoes what God would do to save Israel.
God went to war with Pharaoh for his oppression of the Israelites. After a series of plagues Pharaoh was forced to let the Israelites leave.
But then he changed his mind and came after them with a great army, so that they were trapped between the army and the sea.
But God once again acted to save the Israelites through water. He parted the sea, so that Israel crossed on dry land, but the Egyptian army, like the Hebrew boy babies from the time of Moses’s birth were drowned in the sea.
God saved them through water, but in order to enter into a new relationship with them, where they would be formed into a new nation, following God’s ways and living in the promised land.
In fact, like Pharaoh’s daughter, who heard baby Moses crying, God heard the cry of his people and had pity on them and rescued them.
Like Pharaoh’s daughter he was generous to them bringing them eventually into a beautiful new land to live in, even though they had done nothing to deserve this.
Like Pharaoh’s daughter God adopted this people to be his own, to bear his name and to live in his ways.
You?
As Christians, we know that baptism, reminds us of all of this.
In his first letter to Corinthians, Paul says:
“They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” (1 Corinthians 10:2)
He thus deliberately links Christian baptism as a sign of what God does to us, with what God had done for Israel.
Just as Moses as a baby could do nothing to save himself, so we can do nothing to save ourselves.
Rather God, out of pity for our plight because we have lived as though God does not matter and is not important, going our own way and messing up his world, gave us a way out of being condemned for that wrongdoing. He had pity on us and sent Jesus to receive the condemnation on the cross, so that all who put their trust in his salvation may be forgiven, freed from condemnation and saved from judgement and death.
More than that, God acts generously towards us giving us new life, restoring us now and giving us the joy and hope of eternal life.
Finally, he adopts us to be his children and gives us his Spirit, so that we can live with a new and wonderful sense of identity – more than being treated as part of Pharaoh’s family, we are now treated as part of God’s family.
So, have you been saved by God in this way? Have you chosen to put your trust in him and grasp hold of the new life and new identity he offers you? It’s never too late or too soon. Now is the time to take hold of the life that God wants to give you, just as at their baptism we pray he will do for Hudson and Mason.
Yours in Christ,
Paul
St. George's Church Ramsgate 