Oh, Paradise; Paradise is the place to be! Long ago in the Garden of Eden, the garden of Paradise, our first parents, Adam and Eve, lived. They had perfect joy, unity, and communion with God and each other. They were perfect and sinless. In Eden, a river flowed out of Paradise, which separated into four rivers, watering Eden, and then going out into the rest of the world (Genesis 2:10-14).
But Adam and Eve wanted to know more than good. They wanted to know good and evil, falling victim to the devil’s deception. They yearned to know and become what God had not created them to be, causing them to sin and bring ruin into the world. They cut themselves off, and all their descendants, from that magnificent place and the source-river that watered the world (Genesis 3:24).
Today, as descendants of Adam and Eve, that Eden, that Paradise, is a long-forgotten memory. We no longer have perfect joy, unity, and communion with God and one another. We don’t even know what that is like.
After Eden, the world grew darker and evil filled every corner. God was no longer first in everyone’s lives. But it was even worse than that. Most didn’t even give a thought about God and the ways in which He would have us to live. Evil thoughts continually lingered in our minds.
So, God decided to cleanse the world, removing those who hated Him. Only eight people were living in the world who still believed in the one, true God. They were Noah and his family. And although they were sinners, they believed God’s promise that He first gave to Eve. God would send a Savior who would be the answer to our sin problem, the sin which we had unleashed into the world. They still believed in the Messiah to come, clinging to God for forgiveness, life, and salvation.
So, God saved those eight people through the waters of the flood. Noah and his family entered the ark, shut the door, and remained there for about a year. Finally, when God lowered the waters, the eight believers stepped out into a new world, into something a bit closer to paradise. For, through that flood, God had cleansed this world of sin. Yet, they were still in their sinful flesh and continued to sin. So, they offered sacrifices to God. God blessed them and caused them to be fruitful to fill the earth again (Genesis 6-8).
Later, God caused Abraham to leave the land of Ur and travel to a new land that God would give to him, and his descendants, as an inheritance. So, Abraham went on the other side of the Jordan River to live in the Promised Land of Canaan. And God kept His promise (Genesis 12-13). Yet, because of famine, Abraham’s descendants moved to Egypt and there eventually became slaves.
After about 400 years, God was going to bring His people out of Egypt, back into the Promised Land of Canaan, which flowed with milk and honey. He was finally going to give them their inheritance again. A little piece of paradise on earth awaited them, where they could live in peace and worship their God. God rescued them by the Passover blood of the lamb and by bringing them through the Red Sea. In this sea, God drowned the enemies of Israel in a resounding crash. Their earlier life of slavery and bondage was no more (Genesis 11-14).
But lacking in faith, the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. Finally, now ready to go back into Canaan, they looked down at the Jordan River and into the vast expanse of their earthly paradise. There they stood, looking at God’s fulfillment of His promises.
Joshua was now the leader of the Israelites. He directed the priests to carry the Ark of the Covenant, the place where God made His presence known for the benefit of His people. When the soles of the priests’ feet touched the Jordan River, the water stopped flowing. They stood in the middle of the Jordan River on dry ground. God had done another miracle. This time instead of stopping the waters of the Red Sea, He stopped the waters of the Jordan River. The Israelites crossed over into the Promised Land and there began to live.
Yet, today, we are remembering and celebrating the baptism of Jesus. What does all this have to do with any of that? Well, did you notice a theme running through each Old Testament story? What is the common thread that ties them all together? There are two: Paradise or the Promised Land, and water or the Jordan River.
Paradise and water motifs weave their way through the entire Old Testament. Even more, God is showing us through them that they both have something to do with salvation. In the Old Testament, God saved His people through water to bring them into the Promised Land. It was this historical reality that God used to help us, we in the New Covenant, to understand what He would do for us through the water of baptism. As in the Old Covenant, God also uses water to bring you into the Promised Land, into Paradise.
Listen to how the Apostle Peter ties together God saving His Old Testament people with your baptism.
Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight people) were saved through water. Similar to that, baptism now saves–not because it removes dirt from your body but because it is an appeal to God of a clear conscience. (1 Peter 3:20b-21)
Peter connects New-Covenant baptism to the cleansing waters of the flood that God used to drown and destroy sin. Although the floodwaters destroyed sin and evil, Peter talks about what God saved through the flood, not destroyed. God saved Noah and his family through the waters to bring them into an earthly paradise.
In a similar way, God destroys our enemies–sin, death, and the power of the Devil–by drowning them in the water and Word of holy baptism. Through baptism, God brings us into the Promised Land of Paradise. Through baptism, God the Holy Spirit makes us children of God and brings us into His kingdom, which includes the promise that we will be with Him forever in the Paradise of eternity.
Know what God does through Baptism–it saves you as the Apostle Peter clearly says! Not only does it forgive here and now, but it also brings you into Paradise. You might ask, “How can this be?” Look at Joshua at the Jordan that day, 3,500 years ago. God baptized them in the waters of the Red Sea after they had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Now, they were entering the Promised Land after passing through the waters of the Jordan River–the same river in which John baptized our dear Lord Jesus.
In the Old-Testament people of Israel, we can see a picture of our lives. Like them at the Red Sea, in our baptism, God also destroyed our enemies and made us children of God. If you want to say it this way, after we have wandered around in this world of sin for 40 years, God brings us through the waters of death into the Promised Land, the Paradise of everlasting life.
Holy baptism makes us the beloved children of our heavenly Father, which is nothing other than the sure-and-certain promise of heaven. That’s the point we are to take in from all those Old Testament stories. For that’s what God was doing and showing us by leading His people of old here and there and making such magnificent promises to them. Those powerful works of God were but one foreshadowing after the other, all pointing us toward Jesus Christ and baptism in the New Covenant. That’s the point the Apostle Peter made so clearly when he said, “Baptism now saves you.”
But why did Jesus want to be baptized? He didn’t need to be saved. He didn’t need to be cleansed from sin. After all, He was–and is–sinless! Yet, Jesus told John to baptize Him to fulfill all righteousness.
Here’s why. When Jesus was baptized, He did so to do something righteous for us. After all, He didn’t need any righteousness. But we did! And so it makes sense: Fulfilling all righteousness, Jesus was baptized, doing something that would make us righteous. That was what His baptism was all about.
In His baptism, Jesus made a most-precious exchange. He took all the sins that those waters would collect, the cleansing water that would give me and you a clear conscience toward God. Jesus received our sins in the waters of His baptism, so we would receive His holiness in ours. Jesus gets our sin. We get His righteousness. That’s the righteousness that Jesus fulfilled in His baptism.
That’s why you can stand before God the Father, for you aren’t there in His holy presence because of your good works or righteousness. You can be there because Jesus covers you with His righteousness. Even as God made promises to His Old-Covenant people, and fulfilled every one of them, so also does He make His sure and solid promises to you in baptism.
You are His beloved child. You will be with Him forever. You are forgiven. In the waters of holy baptism, you have crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. Amen.
