Baptism is God's word in water that saves. Not that the church necessarily says that we are saved by this ritual, but rather baptism gathers up all the meanings of Christian salvation and demonstrates those in word and water. The dying-rising dynamic that is signified in baptism is at the heart of salvation in Christ. The church promises that this has happened to you, is happening, will happen to you in your salvation. From this rich ritual we note a number of meanings about Christian salvation.
1. You can't save yourself. Baptism is a gift that is offered to you, not something done by you. So is your salvation.
2. Baptism is a sign that God works through the church to do for you what you cannot do for yourself, mainly to save you. This corporate, ecclesial gift they call salvation.
3. Baptism is a sign of a process that takes only a few minutes to do but the rest of your whole life to finish. That process is called salvation.
4. Baptism is a great comfort in life and in death because it reminds us that our relationship with God is something that is not utterly dependent upon us. When we call baptism a "sacrament" we are signifying that baptism is an act of God, a sign of God's self-giving, a public testimonial and confirmation of salvation.
5. In baptism there is an interplay between a gift offered and a gift received. There must be commitment, confession, response, and transformation, but that doesn't all have to be done the day you are baptized. For some, baptism is the culmination of a long journey; for others, baptism is the beginning of a journey that will continue over a lifetime. As Luther said, every day we must bound out of bed and pray to God to continue the work begun in us in our baptism—namely dying and rising with Christ. Dying and rising with Christ is the dynamic at the heart of what we call "salvation."
So we would be justified, when asked "What is the meaning of salvation?" to reply simply, "Baptism."
LEARNING TO ENDURE THE LOVE OF JESUS
Pastoral care in the church is the sustained attempt to be with the people to whom this God has erotically turned, those who are being snared in the great dragnet of God's grace. Alas, much that passes for pastoral care is mere adjustment to the cultural status quo, adaptation through therapy or chemistry to governmentally sanctioned definitions of reality. True pastoral care in the name of Christ consists of encouragement to rebel against the illusory world that is produced by the modern state and its salvations and join God's revolution. I expect this is what Barth meant when he said that the mercy of God was much more demanding and difficult for humanity than the judgment of God. To be actively loved by God, really to know that God has decisively moved in with us and taken up our cause is desperately to need pastoral care to assist us in enduring such severe mercy. Most of the people in my church are fairly content and happy—until Jesus shows up. The trouble starts when they discover that salvation is inextricably linked to vocation. They experience awareness of their salvation not only as future blessing but also as present assignment.
We say in the Apostles' Creed that Christ "sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty." It is a statement about rule, authority. But it's also a statement about the nature of God and what God is up to, not only in heaven but on earth. Seated there, at the right hand of the Father, it's hard for me to believe that Christ sits there in serene complacency. The Son who sits next to the Father is none other than the one who sought the sheep, intruded among the sinners, reached toward the unloved, the one who stooped to the wounded in the ditch. Now this one sits at the right hand of the Father, now in the power of the Holy Spirit works with the Father as embodiment of the Father's full eros.5 This is great comfort.
Paul cries out in anguish, "Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Rom 7:24). This cry (uttered well after "conversion" on the Damascus road, I remind you) is quickly followed by the celebratory, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" I also note that Paul says, "I know in whom I have believed." Paul does not say, "I know what I believe," as if he believed in a system of ideas. Nor does he say, "I know that I believe," as if his belief were a free floating belief in belief. Paul's belief is personal trust in an engaging person—Jesus Christ.
To be loved by this person can be a challenge. The most controverted, tensive, and challenging thing about salvation in Jesus Christ is that it is salvation in Jesus Christ. If there is "no other name . . . by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12), then those of us who know Jesus ought to understand better than anyone why many resist his rescue.
The popular movie Crash opens with a disgusting scene as an African American couple is stopped by two Caucasian policemen. One of the policemen, an obviously troubled middle-aged man, humiliates the couple by touching and probing the woman on the pretense that he is doing a search of her body, looking for weapons. It is a humiliating experience of racism and sexist evil.
The couple is enraged but feels helpless to do anything about it. Eventually, they separate, so angry is the woman that her husband stood by and did nothing, so humiliated and angry is the man that he was a helpless bystander as his beloved was humiliated by this racist cop.
Later in the movie, the same policeman comes upon a terrible accident. A car has flipped upside down. It is leaking gas. Trapped inside is the driver. The policeman moves into action, crawling inside the car. But when he climbs inside and the trapped driver sees him, she begins screaming, "No, no! Not you. Get away from me. Don't touch me!"
It is the same woman whom he earlier humiliated. She is obviously terrified to see him. Though she hangs upside down, and though gasoline is leaking all around her, she can't stand the thought of being near this man again, much less having him save her.
But the policeman acts as he has been trained. He attempts to calm her. He tells her that she is going to make it. He pulls out his knife and cuts her free, gently letting her down in the upside down car, eventually pulling her to safety just before the car explodes in flames.
As she is led away by others, she looks over her shoulder and sees that the cop, the man who had so terribly wronged her now is the one responsible for saving her life. She must live as one who has been saved, indebted to a man whom she hates. Her savior is the perpetrator of a terrible, sinful act. It is all very complicated.
Salvation is complicated because of the complicated trinitarian God who saves. We are saved by the one whom we despise. Unlike in Crash, we are saved not by the one who abused us, but the one whom we abused. The one whom we crucified in a desperate attempt to be left alone becomes our savior who refuses to be God without us. And in being saved we are also indebted, enlisted, and bound in discipleship to the one who has suffered because of us and yet suffered for us in order to save us. Our salvation by the crucified Christ thus presses upon us heavy responsibility to live with the risen Christ. His salvation makes our lives more complex than if we had not been reached to and embraced by him. Even now God is searching through the large collection of divine fishhooks for just the right lure to catch you in order to embrace you in order eternally to enjoy you.
All we know of salvation, our final end, our ultimate hope, is Jesus Christ who keeps trying zealously to eros us, sōzō completely, rescue us, heal us, perfectly to have us be all that he intends. Salvation is, therefore, also the name for the adventure of being the objects of the love of a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit pro nobis. Charles Wesley's hymns are about as sensuous as most of us Methodists get. Wesley knew that to be loved by God is to be changed in the embrace. As usual, Wesley says it better than I:
Finish, then, thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee:
changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.6
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