The first chapter of the Gospel of John records John the Baptist’s baptizing people in the Jordan River.

The Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was but at no point does anyone ask him what he is doing.

This act of baptism, that has become so tied with the beginning of a Christian walk of faith, seems to be nothing new at a time where no one yet knows Jesus as the Messiah. Does the act of baptism predate Christianity?

The short answer is yes and no. Baptism, as we understand it today in the Christian church, does not develop before Jesus’ life but there was something that did that made what John was doing understood by the masses.

Just as John the Baptist was the forerunner for Christ, the mikveh was the forerunner for baptism.

The mikveh, with roots tied to the washing in the Mosaic Law, is a ritual bath performed on regular and special occasions in the Jewish faith. It is an act that predates Jesus but continues on into current times.

It is a symbolic washing for purification in which the occupant submerges themselves entirely under the water before coming back up.

There are special qualifications about where it can be done with possibly the most important being that it needs to be done in water that supports life (referred to as living waters) and flows freely to that location. The Jordan River certainly qualifies as an appropriate location.

Being dunked into living waters to symbolically show purification starts to draw some obvious connections to Christian Baptism but John took this practice and he transformed it into something even more special.

Isn’t that how God always works, taking what we know and who we are and transforming into something extraordinary?

John spoke of an even greater baptism to come in Luke 3:16, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but He is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the straps of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

You see, in Jesus we are baptized and purified not symbolically but completely.

This act that God gave and the people with John at the Jordan River recognized finds its fulfillment in Christ. Through Him, our sins are forgiven and we are made pure because our sins are cast away and His perfect life is credited to us.

This baptism can only be done in the Living Water as Jesus told the woman at the well, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

We are so incredibly blessed that God has made a way for us to be made clean regardless of all of our past mistakes and failures. Come to Jesus today, draw close to Him, and be cleansed in the Living Water!

People’s EC Church is located at 216 Wagner St., Lehighton.