Baptism

“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”  Mark 10:38

Baptism – The imagery of Jesus’ baptism is the imagery of the Exodus.  God brought His people through the waters of the Red Sea into the place where He would care for them – the wilderness.  In the wilderness, all of our survival skills are useless.  In the wilderness, we come to the end of ourselves, to the end of our self-sufficiency.  In the wilderness, we confront God.  And baptism, the passage from sin and death, is the way into the wilderness.

The story of Israel in the wilderness is the story of God’s faithfulness and our failure.  Over and over the children of the promise disobey.  In the wilderness, where they are to learn trust and obedience, they complain, they murmur against God, they test Him and they turn to idols.  And so the wilderness, the place where we are supposed to be most at home with a God who provides all we need, becomes the place where we display our lack of trust and our rebellion.  God intends the wilderness to become a place of refuge in Him but we make it a place of judgment.  In the wilderness, those who refuse God’s provision die.

Baptism is the entry into the place where we either trust in the Provider or we reap His judgment.  Baptism opens the door to the either/or character of the wilderness.  Have you ever wondered why the scapegoat (literally, the animal on whom the sins of the people were placed) is driven into the wilderness?  That animal is driven out into God’s place of judgment because the wilderness, God’s home, is the place where God deals with sin. 

Jesus knew that baptism would take him into the wilderness as the scapegoat for all Mankind.  Jesus knew that baptism identified him as the true Israel, the one who would be obedient unto death, the one who would fulfill God’s vision of a holy priesthood for others. 

When Jesus asks, “Are you able to be baptized with my baptism?” he is asking a question that has only one answer.  “No, Lord, I cannot bear the sins of the world as you will.  I cannot be baptized in this way.  I am not the true Israel.”

Only one can be baptized in this way.  Many crossed the Red Sea but none died to self.  Many came to John but none were chosen as the Son.  “But you, Lord, you are the true Son.  I am not worthy.  But you are worthy.  My baptism is only in recognition of your obedience.  Without your sacrifice, it means nothing.  You took the curse so that I could cross over.”

If you are living on the other side of baptism, you are at home in the wilderness, under the care of God.