Day 23 Monday - Mar 20, 2023; Mar 11, 2024; Mar 31, 2025
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. -Mark 16:16
Sitting in my cottage, I can enjoy myself quite contentedly. I can put on movies, play games, do puzzles, and just enjoy the small, secluded space. But then something happens: I look out the window. And there, in the front yard, is a deer walking towards me. For all that I find inside, sometimes the real jewel is found by looking outside.
This is how it is with faith. Faith looks outside of itself. We can get pretty satisfied looking inside at the things we can do as people of faith, but the real jewel comes from outside of us and marches towards us in the relentless beauty of hope and salvation. That jewel is Jesus. Whatever I find inside myself that is so great, everytime I gaze out upon Jesus I see something much better. How does that hymn Beautiful Savior go? “Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer.”
As an external act, baptism can help get our faith looking outside of ourselves and toward Jesus. This is important when we love what we see inside. But look up and see Jesus! He comes to you with his salvation. Baptism invites you to look less at the amazing (or not-so-amazing) things within you and more at the ways in which God comes to you. And because baptism is such a firm, physical, and historical event: when you are baptized you know Jesus has crossed the front of the church and come to you. There is no mistaking it. God isn’t just in the room but passed you by. You were baptized. Words were spoken over you. You know it happened, and God has made promises about when that happens.
Jesus says that those who believe and are baptized will be saved. And whoever is baptized has every reason to believe that they are saved, because baptism is one of those places where we can concretely look up and see Jesus.
Give me eyes to see you, Jesus, when I spend my day looking at everything else. Let me especially look up and outside of myself and my faith to see you who my entire faith is to be founded upon. I want to see you. May your Holy Spirit let it be so today. Amen.
This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.
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