"Are you able to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" Mark 10:38.
Jesus to his followers: Count the cost. Jesus, persecuted, will thereby be baptized bodily to death. Now, Scripture calls people to be baptized into Jesus. I.e., to be dunked in water obediently to him. To believe and confess him as Lord, to die with him, to be buried with him, to be raised with him. To life. But what about those who come to faith, without opportunity to baptismal waters? Example: A convict, now a confessing, unbaptized believer, to be executed tomorrow? First. It's a God thing. (Always has been.) Not a your thing. (Get out of the jury box.) Second. They die bodily now with Christ. Baptism. Blessing.
With a brother or sister today, we remind each other of our baptismal death into Christ. Persecuted together, we endure the offense of the cross. We give thanks for baptismal entrance into life, the not-of-this-world kingdom. Sky kingdom.
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