Living Waters: Moving Beyond Sin to a Deeper Meaning of Baptism
By: Susan Ryder
Ecclesiastes 1:7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
Matthew 3:13-17 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Heraclitus ~ On those who enter the same rivers, ever different waters flow.
The traditional understanding of baptism in the Christian church centers around the notion of cleansing ourselves of all sin and unrighteousness in the purifying waters of baptism, dying to an old way of life while being born again into a new spiritual identity. This conventional interpretation of baptism has meaning and power for many Christians. However, it no longer holds the same significance for me in my own personal faith journey, because I think that confining the purpose and meaning of baptism merely to the cleansing of sin can limit us from a deeper spiritual interpretation of the sacrament.
According the story in the gospels, Jesus came upon John, who was baptizing people in the Jordan River. When he saw Jesus, he apparently recognized him as the one he had been preaching about. So John told Jesus that it was Jesus who ought to be baptizing John, not the other way around. But Jesus insisted that John do the honors, and so John relented and baptized Jesus. And the story says that after Jesus came up out of the water, the Spirit of God alighted upon him like a dove, and a voice expressed that God was well pleased with Jesus.
Now, obviously Jesus’ baptism couldn’t have centered upon cleansing him from sin, since, according to traditional Christian theology, Jesus was sinless. And whether or not you adhere to that belief, I find it ironic that, according to the story, this sinless man received the waters of baptism, setting an example for the rest of us to follow. So, if our baptism harkens back to Jesus’ own, and his baptism wasn’t about the cleansing of sin, what other interpretations might we garner from the story of Jesus’ baptism to make use of in our own experience?
One alternative interpretation has to do with a metaphorical reenactment of the Exodus story and crossing of the Jordan, which is for another article. For the purposes of this article, perhaps a key lies in the symbolism of the water itself.
To that end, it is interesting to note that several religions celebrate and incorporate water into their traditions.
For instance, beginning two days after the Christian celebration of the baptism of Jesus (and going through the end of February), the Hindu festival of Kumbha Mela begins. A celebration which occurs once every 12 years, millions of Hindus descended upon Allahabad (the City of God) earlier this week, a divine location situated on the confluence of three sacred rivers, the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati.
The origin of Kumbha Mela lies in the story of the time when the gods and demons churned the ocean in search of the nectar of immortality. And part of the celebration of Khumbha Mela includes ritual bathing in the rivers.
In some pagan celebrations, water is associated with feelings and camaraderie. When covens celebrate sabbats, they will pass the chalice around the circle, each member taking a sip while another member offers this blessing: “May you never thirst.” Further, in earth-based religions water is one of the four elements (air, water, earth, fire).
It’s not surprising that water plays such a key role in some religious traditions and rituals, including our own. After all, the human body is a “body of water” in and of itself. It is what makes us up and keeps us alive. Water and its dissolved constituents make up the bulk of our bodies, and determine the nature of nearly every physiological process. We are made of intracellular fluid, the liquid within our cells, and of extra-cellular fluid, which includes our plasma and other solutions which are under our skin.
Thus, when we bleed, our blood is as wet and salty as the sea, for our biochemistry is still based to a great extent on the salinity of the oceans from which we evolved. We land-dwellers rose up out of the oceans, and are filled with the substances that birthed us onto terra firma in the first place.
Water has long been considered a sign of “life” to scientists. Recent discovery of signs of water near the surface of Mars gave a boost to the already hot field of astrobiology, the study of issues related to other life in the universe. Scientists have long believed that the materials that led to life on Earth also exist, or previously existed, on Mars. These ingredients include carbon, certain minerals, energy, and … WATER.
Further, water is essential to our survival. Studies have shown that we can live for weeks without food, but we can live only days without water. And though most of us don’t, we all know that we should drink eight glasses of water every day to maintain optimum health. So, it is into these life-giving waters that Jesus entered, and emerged with an anointing of the Spirit and a blessing from God.
Looking at the story in this way, what are some other ways in which we might think about the meaning and power of baptism? For one, perhaps the waters of baptism invite us to think about the depth of God’s presence in our lives and about a limitless love, which pursues us relentlessly, and which is both within and without. The waters of baptism suggest, at least symbolically, the deep and limitless mystery of the very essence of existence, which we contain within ourselves and which also dwells outside of ourselves. Or perhaps the waters of baptism can serve as a reminder of the connection we have to the Sacred and to the rest of creation.
Whatever the case, I invite exploration beyond the traditional “washing away of sins” to look at other ways in which the image of water can breathe new meaning into the ritual of baptism. Maybe by looking at the baptism of Jesus, and given what I’ve said about the nature and importance of water, we might reinterpret and celebrate the waters of baptism in our own lives, moving beyond the confines of one traditional interpretation to something deeper and fuller.
Susan Ryder is a pastor, and considers herself a progressive Christian (which means she’s a liberal). She is also an author on
http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers.