At nine years old, I got into the baptismal font at our local church and got immersed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. What I actually did was get baptized in the name of eating the little wafer and drinking the juice they called "Communion wine." I viewed it as snack time, something I wasn’t allowed to do without getting dunked first. So much for godly intentions …

What baptism is not

There are a lot of misconceptions about baptism and, as with my case, they can start early. This leads to people getting baptized for all the wrong reasons. Is the water holy? Is there something truly mystical in the ritual? Will it burn a vampire? Is it "fire insurance" against hell? What happens if I give my life to Jesus, but get hit by a car while crossing the street to the river to be baptized, am I still saved?

"As an ignorant child, I got baptized to eat cheap bread and fake wine."

After I’d wasted a quarter of a century living apart from Jesus, I got baptized in Lake Washington at a Mars Hill event. This time, baptism wasn’t for a bland cracker, juice, or wine, or even to impress my friends. I sincerely and deeply yearned to acknowledge my transformation by the good news of Jesus and my affiliation with his ongoing story and family. What better way to do that than by humbly submitting to his command, and joining Jesus in the very same act he used to kick off his teaching ministry and subsequently reveal his relationship to God?

We are baptized because Jesus was

A lot of the technical questions were addressed in our previous post, but what can sometimes be missed is the simple truth that baptism is part of Jesus’ own story, and Christians are followers of Jesus. At 30 years of age, he went down to see his cousin John the Baptist, who was baptizing people in the river. According to John Piper, a baptism by John was "a radical act of individual commitment to belong to the true people of God, based on personal confession and repentance, NOT on corporate identity with Israel through birth." Despite John the Baptist’s pushback that he didn’t feel he even deserved to wash Jesus’ feet, sinless Jesus was emphatic that John baptize him.

"As an adult, I got baptized in response to Jesus' body broken like life-giving bread for me, his blood spilled like life-sustaining drink on my behalf."

When Jesus came up out of the water, everyone present got to witness a mind-blowing sight as God’s Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and God the Father spoke from the heavens saying that Jesus was his "beloved Son." Jesus had no sin to be washed away—that wasn’t the point of his baptism—but God demonstrated that his Spirit was in Jesus and that Jesus was his child. (It’s also a unique look at the Trinity, as we see Father God and God the Spirit interacting with Jesus, God incarnate.)

We are baptized to identify with Jesus

When a Christian woman gets baptized, for instance, she's identifying with Jesus’ story in warm appreciation that much the same has been given to her. God says he puts his Spirit in the Christian, indwelling her and working in her, walking with her, helping her as she endures this life. Through Jesus’ atoning work on the cross, dying for the sin all the rest of us have done, Christians are even adopted as sons and daughters of God’s family. Although I didn’t get an audible with clouds parting and dove descending, my baptism was a symbolic moment to identify with Jesus’ story. Thanks to the life-saving work Jesus did to bring me into his family, I could stand up, feel water streaming down my face, and know that God’s Spirit does live in me. Thanks to Jesus, I am God’s adopted son, and because my sin has been covered by Jesus’ sacrifice, my Creator looks at me as though I’m white as snow and loves me like a pleased Dad.

"The simple truth [is] that baptism is part of Jesus’ own story."

Unlike Jesus, I had sin that needed washed away. My act of baptism didn’t literally do that. Through Jesus’ death on the cross for the sin of the world, and his victorious resurrection from death to life, my sin was washed away by his blood. How could I not want to follow in the footsteps that humbly went down to the water, identify myself with his story and his commission to ministry? If my goal is to be an image-bearer who looks like Jesus, what better to commence that commitment? As an ignorant child, I got baptized to eat cheap bread and fake wine. As an adult, I got baptized in response to Jesus' body broken like life-giving bread for me, his blood spilled like life-sustaining drink on my behalf. As a pastor, I’ve since been blessed to baptize innumerable men and women, beloved sons and daughters adopted into God’s family through Jesus Christ, in whom he is well pleased. Seeing them follow Jesus’ example and command reflects their relationship, not ritual, and revisits the amazing moment when our Savior was revealed as God’s beloved Son sent to seek and save. James Harleman, at left, baptizes someone last August. He is an executive pastor at the Shoreline campus and also hosts the popular Film & Theology series. For more on the theology behind baptism, check out last week's post, "What Does Baptism Mean?"