When you think about baptism, you likely picture either a ritual for washing away sins or a ceremony for joining a church. Yet neither explanation quite captures what Jesus was doing that day at the Jordan River. He wasn’t there to become a Christian, as Christianity didn’t exist. He wasn’t seeking forgiveness because tradition holds he was sinless.
Instead, Jesus waded into those waters at the precise moment when his life’s direction became clear to him, when the carpenter’s son from an unremarkable village was ready to declare himself and step into his calling.
This understanding of baptism as intention-setting rather than sin-cleansing opens something profound for those of us who hold diverse theological perspectives. You might find yourself at odds with traditional explanations of this ancient ritual, yet perfectly positioned to grasp what Jesus and John were really doing by that riverside.
Jesus approached baptism the way you might approach a New Year’s resolution, where it is not as an obligation but as a declaration, not as washing but as choosing. He was being forthright with himself and with God about the purpose of his life.
“The world needs communities like this one more now than ever. The world needs you and others like you in this moment so acutely. The world needs churches like this one right now to be who we are and to live out our callings and our mission with clarity and with direction.”
In a world filled with violence, division, and fear, the call extends beyond personal intention to collective purpose. You’re invited to remember your baptism not merely as something that happened to you once, but as an ongoing invitation to step boldly into your calling.
Whether your community stays in its current form, moves to something new, or discovers paths not yet imagined, the deeper intention remains unchanged which is to be the people God has always been calling you to become, rising to meet this moment with compassion, justice, and the unmistakable clarity of purpose that Jesus embodied when he felt the Jordan’s waters rising around his ankles, then his shins, then his knees.
