Baptism to rebirth

Vacationing this past week on the steamy Colorado River where desert temperatures topped off at 124 degrees, I found myself pondering the meaning of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River. Where our family’s vacation home is situated at the foot of Parker Dam, the water is drawn from the bottom of Lake Havasu, leaving it shockingly cold to dive into when you’ve been roasting in the inferno-like conditions.

Standing perched to dive in, I would look deeply into the darkness of the rushing emerald river teeming with life. My body knows the shock that awaits it in the plunge, but just like in baptism, the plunge is just the beginning. Once I hit the icy water, the depth and darkness of the river’s swift current draws me up like a rag doll toward the sun.

And so it is with our spiritual life. When we throw ourselves into a relationship with God by means of our baptism we leave the darkness behind and are pulled up by God’s own Son. It’s not as if we are never tempted or fail… we always will. But now we have someone who grabs hold of us and redirects our lives when we blow it – our Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s why he came!

When we really ponder Jesus’ divinity it serves us well to have a good understanding of his humanity. Scripture tells us he was human in all things except for sin. So when we are defending our Christian faith, this is a key fact. Jesus knew temptation and also knew the importance of rebirth in baptism. Jesus was baptized as a public affirmation of his trust in the Father. He paved the way so that we could follow his lead.

We have the opportunity to extricate ourselves each and every day from past failures and sin by following him in trust. The analogy has been made that through his baptism Jesus took the sins of man upon himself by throwing himself into the darkness of the Jordan, then catapulting himself out to the water, claiming all men who follow suit. And what did God say? “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.”

Pope Benedict XVI, in his beautiful book, “Jesus of Nazareth,” explains this way: “To accept the invitation to be baptized now means to go to the place of Jesus’ Baptism. It is to go where he identifies himself with us and to receive there our identification with him. The point where he anticipates death has now become the point where we anticipate rising again with him. For it is there in baptism that Jesus enters into solidarity with sinners.”