A Baptism Unlike Any Other

The water was cold. The material took on water and weighed me down. I was all of 4'10" tall...12 years old. I was about to be baptized in a huge robe. Pastor Wilson came to my house a few weeks earlier to talk to me about it. He used some pretty big words that I didn't understand. Words like "salvation" and "atonement" and "propitiation." He said that my baptism was "an outward expression of an inward profession." Hmmmm?  I knew enough...that sin was not good--that Jesus died in my place and that getting baptized was telling everyone that I was following Jesus. I'm grateful that I wasn't given a theology test--that Jesus allows, even the little ones, to come to Him. Baptism is such a beautiful picture of the work that Jesus has done for us. He laid down His life, was buried and He rose from the grave. He overcame death itself. The metaphor of water is all throughout the Bible. In baptism, we identify with His death as we go down into the water, we identify with His burial as the waters envelope us, and we identify with His resurrection as we are raised up out of the water. Baptism is a Celebration.