Jesus dove into the waters of baptism, plunging into our deepest need to rescue us.
As a child, I loved swimming, though I wasn’t very good at it. The lukewarm waters of our sunbaked community pool were a delight. I remember arriving sweaty and sunburned—sunscreen wasn’t a thing in the seventies and eighties. A cannonball into the pool delivered a jolt of joy, and for hours, my friends and I would splash and play, our childhood worries dissolving in the water.
But inevitably, we were drawn to the black line. Painted at the pool’s edge, it marked where the four-foot shallows plunged to fifteen feet. It signaled a steep slope, a warning. We four-foot-two-inch daredevils, barely able to swim, called it “the abyss”—a word we didn’t know then but fits perfectly now.
The black line was where we performed the tiptoe dance, struggling to keep our noses above water while grinning to hide our fear. Something magnetic pulled us toward the deep. The moment your toe slipped, panic set in. You were in trouble. Real trouble.
If I’d known Jesus then, I might have prayed Psalm 69:1: “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck.” David, the psalmist, knew this place well. Pursued by Saul, betrayed by his sons, shaken by his own sins, he stood at life’s precipice, disoriented and desperate.
This wasn’t tiptoeing at the edge of a pool—it was standing at the brink of a true abyss, caught in a wave pool’s undertow, his spirit gasping for air.
Yet the Hebrew text reveals a deeper cry: “For the waters have come up to my soul (nephesh).” David wasn’t just pleading for physical rescue; he feared for his eternal being. This wasn’t tiptoeing at the edge of a pool—it was standing at the brink of a true abyss, caught in a wave pool’s undertow, his spirit gasping for air.
At the edge of that watery abyss, you stop looking down and start looking up. David’s words capture this: “I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim waiting for my God” (Ps. 69:2-3).
This is the language of the soul, familiar to anyone who’s felt overwhelmed. The waters threaten to overtake your soul, yet in defiance, you lift your eyes to the God who is mighty to save—mighty and willing.
For Christians, this is our comfort. Words like weary, parched, dim, and waiting describe pools we know too well. But Jesus dove into the waters of baptism, plunging into our deepest need to rescue us. From the cross, his face tilted heavenward, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). He didn’t plead for himself. Like a new David, he faced death’s flood and interceded for our souls.
