Advent Reflection: Psalm 51
Yesterday I had the privilege of baptizing a high school student in the ocean. She first asked Jesus into her heart as a fourth grader in our children’s ministries. When she was in eighth grade it clicked: This is what it means to have a relationship with Jesus. She wanted to be baptized to “seal the deal” so that she “would never go back.” Her family, friends, youth and children’s leaders were all there to celebrate with her. Baptism is a sign of what God has already done in our hearts. Going down into the water represents acknowledgment of sin and dying with Christ, and coming up out of the water represents washing away of sin and rising with Christ in his resurrection to new life (Romans 6). Baptism reminds us of what Jesus has done to address the reality of our sin and the promise of forgiveness. The single event in David’s life that is most shocking and has the greatest ripple effect is his sin with Bathsheba. After all, David is a “man after God’s own heart,” the ...