If I were to say that something was simultaneously heavy and light, you might rightly think I had been dropped on my head as a baby. In fact, my Grandpa did drop me on my head once, but that’s beside the point. When we come to baptism, we really come to a seemingly perplexing contradiction. Baptism is simultaneously a sign of death and of life.
Let me explain why that statement isn’t incoherent babbling. The OT gives us many types of baptism. Consider briefly two of them. The flood the Lord sent in Noah’s time drowned all corrupt men, there’s death; however, it also bore up the eight saints to salvation, bringing them into a new world, there life. Pharaoh’s army was drowned in the Red Sea, there’s death; while the Hebrews were led safely through it and brought into a new land, there life.
When we baptize our children we’re confessing that they are joined to both the death of Christ and the life of Christ. This sign certifies that they can live in the death of Christ all their days. Death and life, in one sign. Because the sign points ultimately to Christ. The One who died in our stead, and rose again that we too might die and live in Him.
So welcome our sisters to Jesus Christ…
