From Death Into Life (Romans 6:1-11)
To see the full message, scroll to the bottom. Baptism is first an act of faith. S econd, an act of obedience . T hird an act of belonging. First: we get baptized as an act of faith . In the vocabulary of the scripture writers, water represents both death and life . Water is chaos and destruction. Oceans and floods and storms at sea. It's the R ed S ea pour ing back down onto the E gyptian army as they pursued the people of Israel , trying to bring them back into slavery. It's the ocean threatening to sink J onah's ship and J onah asking to be thrown into the water , fully expect ing to di e . Water was a threat to the apostles, several of whom were fishermen . ... A violent windstorm came up, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was being swamped. But Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke him and said, “ T eacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?” Mark 4:37-38 Even when water is not dramatic and ter