Plunging

Two millennia ago, a wild young prophet dressed in coarse clothes made of camel's hair spoke a revolution. He challenged a culture of religiousity with simple but earth-shifting message: God's Kingdom is near - prepare for it by personal purity - and that not through nit-picking legalism, put by open and public repentance of sins - following by a life showing the fruits of repentance.

To symbolize this shift of heart, the prophet had people step inside the waters of the Jordan river. Then plunged them down under the water, and brought them up again. A symbolic death and resurrection.

John, as the prophet was called, became known as 'the Plunger.' The later English translators of the Bible decided to keep the Greek word as his moniker - and called him John the 'Baptist'.

John's cousin Yeshua of Nazareth (the Hebrew name meaning 'salvation' which is transliterated into English as Joshua or Jesus) also took to 'plunging.' After John's arrest by the corrupt authorities of the day (nothing new under the sun), Yeshua's public ministry blossomed, and his disciples also 'plunged' people who were coming forward to repent.

Yeshua's use of 'plunging' pointed to his own immanent death and resurrection. Both John and Jesus were gruesomely murdered. But Jesus arose on the third day. His final directions to his followers were that they were to tell the whole world the good news about him - and to make disciples - baptising (plunging) them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus had taught.

And so at the dawn of 2010 we continue to obey what our Lord has commanded us to do. On Saturday our house-fellowships gathered together and we had the privilege of 8 members testifying to the work of grace in their lives by obeying Christ in the waters of baptism. The 8 were all totally different. Each one's story unique - from different socio-economic backgrounds, speaking different mother-tongues, having come to Christ in radically different ways. But all common in a desire to make the logical first step of discipleship - the public declaration of following Christ through their symbolic death and resurrection in the water.

The whole process was not easy. Anything where we are working to obey our Lord is not easy. it is never easy to publicly testify about faith. But we are not called to a life of ease. We are called to a life of following our Master.

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picture courtesy Reneta Thomas