By Faith: Baptism

1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

Penned in like cattle in a corral, with Pharaoh behind them and the Red Sea in front of them, Israel had nowhere to go. Would there be no escape?

Then through the hand of his servant Moses, God performed the greatest salvation miracle Israel had ever seen. The waters split. A path opened. The impossible happened. Israel walked between two walls of water to safety on the other side.

This was an act of faith, says Hebrews. Israel had no other choice but to trust God to hold up those walls. It worked—for Israel, but not for Pharaoh and his army. The waters closed back in. The enslaver died, and Israel was free. Free at last!

The New Testament sees the deliverance at the Red Sea as an event pointing to baptism. Human beings are pursued by the enslaving powers of Satan and sin. They pin us against the wall of death. There’s no escape, except by a miracle. God provides the miracle in Jesus. He parts the waters of death and leads all his followers to safety.

Satan and sin, however, cannot follow. The waters of destruction close in on them. The enslavers perish. And we are free—at last!

That’s the good news about baptism. In baptism we die and rise with Christ.

Mighty God, Savior of your people, give us the faith, we pray, to follow Jesus in his dying and rising as signified in our baptism. In his saving name we pray. Amen.