Baptismal meditation, October 16

2 Kings 6:6-7: Then the man of God said, Where did it fall? And when he showed him the place, he cut off a stick, and threw it in there, and made the iron float. And he said, Take it up for yourself. So he put out his hand and took it.

In our sermon this morning, we saw that this apparently trivial miracle of Elisha points to the fact that God is a God of reversals. The God of Elisha reverses the rules governing buoyancy for the benefit of His faithful remnant. He reverses the power relations between Aram and Elisha, and between Aram and Israel, through prayer. He can make the blind see and dazzle into blindness those who can see. Ultimately, this is a sign of the God who performs the great reversal of raising the dead – raising Israel from the death of exile on the far side of the Jordan and raising the true Israel, Jesus from the grave. The floating axe head is the sign of Jonah, which is the sign of Jesus.

It is significant, further, that this “resurrection” image takes place in water, through submersion and return. In the previous chapter, Naaman went down into this same water, the water of the Jordan, and came back cleansed from his leprosy, with flesh “like the flesh of a little child” (2 Kings 5:14). And here, the axe head, like Naaman, goes through the waters of the Jordan and is restored, thereby saving the prophet from debt. This event is thus not only a pointer to the great reversal accomplished in Jesus’ resurrection, but also to the great reversal accomplished in Jesus’ baptism, for Jesus too went down into the waters of Jordan to receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that empowered Him to preach the gospel to the poor, heal the lame, open the eyes of the blind.

Through Christian baptism, we participate in the resurrection of Jesus. As Paul says in Romans 6, we are buried with Him in baptism, “so that we too might walk in newness of life.” This is the good news that we see enacted before us today. As this child passes through the waters, she is joined into the fellowship of Christ, shares in His body, shares in the Spirit that inhabits and animates the body, participates in the resurrection power of Jesus. Through this water, she participates in the great reversal, so that she might walk in newness of life.