Several years ago, when we only had two toddlers, I took my wife on what was the most extravagant of all our vacations. It was actually what I would call a make-up trip to Grand Cayman. I had been blessed to go to the island two years before when the owner of the camp we worked for took the staff there as a Christmas present/staff retreat. Michelle, who had been on staff there much longer than I, had just given birth to our son, Jacob, and could not go. She was great about it, but as you can imagine it was a source of a little humorous, yet real sense of injustice.
So, a couple of years later on this "make-up" trip, having rented out the kids to their grandparents to pay for it, we stayed in the same condo we had stayed in as a staff. We ate at some of the same restaurants I had been to before. And we used the same dive shop for a couple days of some of the best scuba diving in the world. Since neither of us was certified, we went through what they called a "resort course." The course consisted of no more than thirty minutes of instruction with a flip chart and a few minutes of testing the equipment in a pool, and then it was out to sea with a dive master who assured us he would be staying very close and would be taking us to depths of no more than 50 feet.
At one of our stops, we dove down to explore a sunken ship. The thrill of the adventure was tainted slightly when we learned that the vessel had been sunk on purpose, but it was still pretty cool. What struck me was how much the ship had become part of the seascape. It was covered in barnacles and inside were huge schools of small, shiny, silver fish. There had to be millions of them that called the boat 'home.' At one point, with growing over-confidence, I decided to go through a small hole in the ship to explore another room. When only my head had gone through, I felt a tug on my fin and turned to see the dive master wagging his finger at me and beckoning me to come back out into the open areas. He didn't want me to become a permanent part of the sea as well.
Before Jesus departed to join His Father in heaven, he left final words including what we have come to call, "The Great Commission:" "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:19) The word 'baptize' means to immerse or dip. That ship we explored had been intentionally baptized into the Caribbean. Once the ship became part of the sea, covered in barnacles and filled with sea life, it's baptism was complete.
I'm not really sure why the Greek word 'eis,' translated 'in' in the phrase, "in the name of" was translated...'in.' When you go to the Greek lexicons, the predominant translation of that word is 'into.' What's the difference? I think it's huge. When we think about Christ's instruction to baptize, using the word 'in' makes it sound like, "Here's what I want you to say as you do it." However, when you use the word 'into,' it points to the substance into which we are being immersed.
Jesus went to the cross and shed His blood so that we could be covered, forgiven, and reconciled to His Father and ours. He instructed those who had been his apprentices over the previous three years, who had been learning to do what He did, to go and make more apprentices. And he told them to baptize or immerse those new disciples into the name...the person...the identity...the ministry...the power...the life of the Trinity.
Just as that rusty old, barnacle covered ship was no longer what it once was, those of us who are baptized or immersed into God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are no longer the same. We are new creatures. We are saints. We are the righteousness of God. We have a new mission. A new purpose. A new...identity.
We are invited to be baptized. The act of publicly professing our faith in Christ through the act of baptism is wonderful, but only when it follows baptism spiritually. Like a sunken ship is filled with the sea into which it is immersed, we can be filled with the very Holy Spirit of God. Yes, we are invited to be immersed into the Life of God, a life of constant awareness of your Father's overwhelming and unfailing, faithful provision, and His mission to return all of creation to what He intended.
His life is everything our hearts are longing for.
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Galatians 3:26-27
