Graspable God

Water is vital for baptism because water is a thing, not a metaphor. Metaphors mean something other—perhaps something “more”—than what a thing is, and so they end up pointing away from the thing itself to an object that is seen to reside elsewhere. In baptism, for example, water might refer to its origin in God’s creation, or perhaps to the great events of biblical history when God intervened for his people, like Moses leading his people through the parted Red Sea, or perhaps to abstract ideas of birth and new beginning. Instead of these metaphorical uses, in baptism water is water—and “is” means is. In this thing of water, by a divine promise, God has determined to hide so as to be found by sinners who need an object to grasp. It is true that God hides elsewhere than water and is in fact present everywhere if you care to find him. Indeed, God hides in the whole of creation in “masks” or larvae dei—cocoons holding God inside. But in these other things God hides so as not to be found, since to find God in the mountain, in the wind, or in fish is to find God without any accompanying promise. To find God without a promise is to find death, wrath, sin, and the devil, all wrapped up in a single package. So for sinners who are in flight from God, these things of creation appear as threats: “I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight” (Lev 26:36). God is not healthy for a sinner, unless God comes to give himself wholly and completely in his Son—the