The beautiful symbolism behind baptism... what it means to come up out of the water and walk into 'new life', life with Christ. As I saw five (FIVE!) of my friends enter the water and emerge beautifully whole into a new part of their journey, I was struck by just how amazing this life as a Jesus-follower is. And I was so thankful for what we leave behind.

We all have some murky 'water', right? Things in our past... and the symbolism behind going into the water is that at this point we are dying to self. We are considering ourselves dead to the things that held us back, weighed us down, and when we come up for air we are breathing in a new self. This pure and perfect self that God sees as He looks at us with Jesus-tinted glasses is what comes up out of the water. He sees in us that new creation.

So why do we, as new believers and old, spend so much time looking into that nasty, muddy water? Why is it that we stand above the pool wondering what's in there? And why on earth is it that we have such a hard time walking away? The pull of the dark water can be deep. As I see my friends fleshing out this new way of life in Jesus, I'm reminded occasionally that it's not easy. And that I can walk with them, that He's sometimes allowed others around us the clarity to see that someone else's water isn't worth diving back into. This is the accountability part of baptism that is such a gift. By our friends walking into this new life, we've been graciously allowed to join with them. Because it's not easy. And we can't always see for ourselves that the puddle behind us will only dirty our hands and stain our clothes. But the gift of becoming a Redemptive Community, like Pastor Steve spoke about on Sunday, is that we walk together!

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!... God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
(2 Corinthians 5:17, 21)