WRideout
06-05-2017, 10:36 PM
One of my seminary professors, teaching on the Gospel of John, offered the opinion that in the fourth Gospel, there is water everywhere, but no baptism. In the very beginning, there is but an indirect reference to John the Baptist having seen the dove descend on Jesus; there is no explicit baptism scene. This is not to imply that baptism is unimportant, only that we may have to look a little deeper.
Ritual washing was widely practiced by the observant Jews of Jesus time. In an age before the advent of the Germ Theory of Disease, it could be easily observed that contact with certain kinds of sickness would cause a new case to be transmitted, and that contact with filth could also cause illness. Now we understand that disease can be caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites, and that personal hygiene is the cornerstone of good health. For the Jews of ancient Palestine, ritual washing was the means of eradicating the invisible evil. They intended to remove the dirt that harbored the disease. Which is all fine, if the disease is of the body; but what if it is a disease of the soul? That is another question entirely.
When I was a young boy, we used to play a game called “cooties.” Cooties were an invisible germ that held properties never fully described, although it was assumed that an infection of Cooties could lead to all manner of bad things. Girls were widely known to be carriers of cooties, and a touch, or worst of all a kiss from one could drive a boy to frantically cleaning it off with anything available, sometimes a shirt sleeve. So what if there really were cooties? What if people had some invisible thing that needed to be cleaned off? And what if instead of cooties, we called it sin? Jesus tells us that to be cleansed of this we will need to be washed by water and the spirit. In baptism, we have both.
Wayne
Ritual washing was widely practiced by the observant Jews of Jesus time. In an age before the advent of the Germ Theory of Disease, it could be easily observed that contact with certain kinds of sickness would cause a new case to be transmitted, and that contact with filth could also cause illness. Now we understand that disease can be caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites, and that personal hygiene is the cornerstone of good health. For the Jews of ancient Palestine, ritual washing was the means of eradicating the invisible evil. They intended to remove the dirt that harbored the disease. Which is all fine, if the disease is of the body; but what if it is a disease of the soul? That is another question entirely.
When I was a young boy, we used to play a game called “cooties.” Cooties were an invisible germ that held properties never fully described, although it was assumed that an infection of Cooties could lead to all manner of bad things. Girls were widely known to be carriers of cooties, and a touch, or worst of all a kiss from one could drive a boy to frantically cleaning it off with anything available, sometimes a shirt sleeve. So what if there really were cooties? What if people had some invisible thing that needed to be cleaned off? And what if instead of cooties, we called it sin? Jesus tells us that to be cleansed of this we will need to be washed by water and the spirit. In baptism, we have both.
Wayne