The flood in Genesis 6-8 is perhaps the closest thing to a Red Wedding in the story of the Bible. It’s one of the most substantial accounts of judgment and death we have on record. Things had moved from bad to worse since human beings one and two rebelled against God in the garden. Evil had filled every human being to the brim and the world once called good, even very good, needed a cosmic reset button that went as follows:

• Genesis 6: Instruction to build an ark
• Genesis 7: Judgment comes through an apocalyptic flood
• Genesis 8: Waters of judgment recede 

This is one of those sections in the Bible we may be tempted to skip over, censor, or even separate “The God of the Old Testament” from that of the New. Because let’s face it – it’s a dark passage. All that is alive that isn’t on the ark comes to an end: 

“The waters prevailed above the mountains…Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died” (Gen 7:20–22). 

Like the Red Wedding, a massacre abruptly shows up in the presence of things that are good and beautiful, like a wedding. Indeed, here in Genesis, we’re only 6 chapters away from the very first wedding and scenes of celebration at the song of creation. But suddenly, things descend into violence and devastation. The loss of all, save the eight people on the ark. 

Unlike the Red Wedding, the author of this story doesn’t hide his intentions or reasons for the plot surprises. The judgment that happens here is neither capricious nor tribal. It’s an act of cleansing. The New Testament invites its readers to see accounts of passing through and over waters of judgment as a type of baptism (see 1 Corinthians 10), where that which belongs to an old empire of evil in God’s world is being brought to an end to make way for that which is new and eternal. 

This is the Apostle Peter’s reading of these events. He sees Noah’s account of water deliverance as a type of baptism. It becomes all the more intriguing when we see how. Far from saying don’t watch bad things or fast forward this part, the New Testament invites us to ponder deeply how you and I are not the ark riders, worthy of deliverance, but the villains – drowning in the sea of judgment. And if we’re the villains then who is the Noah in our story? 

The answer rests at the very heart of reality, indeed the Apostle Paul calls it a profound mystery that has now been revealed. The Bible’s true and better Red Wedding flips the script on both the Noah story and The Game of Thrones when one man dies in place of the many. This is how God always planned to bring evil to an end, not by crushing his enemies, but by transmuting the evil of his enemies onto himself to die and rise again — out of the stormy waters of judgment to unite himself to his bride forever. All the things that leave a wake behind you in your life have been drowned in the storm of judgment at the cross of Calvary. And like the waters subsiding under Noah’s ark, your old self has been drowned at the bottom of the ocean and you have been lifted out. So, take heart today in the Redder Wedding of the gospel and in the arms of a God who let his blood mingle with our sins in order that we might be brought up onto the dry land of salvation. 

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Talking with younger types about baptism, though, is a reminder of how much nuance it requires. For adults, too. It’s even hard to define — it’s less like “What is an apple?” and more like “What is marriage?” (Well, how much time do you have?)

Christians haven’t always agreed on things like when a person should be baptized or what it symbolizes. I don’t intend to dig deep into the different camps on the matter here, nor to argue for my “side”. What concerns me most, at least for this article, is not definitions per se, but how baptism becomes a window into greener pastures, how it’s not an end in and of itself (as if it were an act of obedience alone), but an arrow pointing downward into the very depths of the gospel itself.

The apostles utilize a variety of images for baptism in their letters — things like Noah’s ark, Red Sea crossings, washing rites, death and resurrection, oneness with Jesus, new creation motifs, etc. All of these are different facets of the one diamond, but there’s something even simpler that doesn’t get a lot of fanfare, and it has to do with directionality.

In the traditional gospel song “Down in the River to Pray” that Alison Krauss famously recorded for the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” the most pointed invitation in the song is, “Come on brothers, let’s go down. Come on sisters, let’s go down, down in the river to pray.”

Now, I don’t mean to meddle in semantics, but it’s worth asking, why “down” to the river and not “up”? The geographical answer might be obvious: rivers flow at (or toward) the lowest elevation possible. But the theological significance is greater still. Even the simplest child knows that going down is easier than going up, and sledding hills without toe-ropes are fun half the time. Baptisms, whether done in a river, a lake, or even a baptismal, are descended into, which requires much less energy, and is good news for those who are weary from failed attempts at saving themselves.

In Acts 8, after Philip shared the good news of Jesus with the Ethiopian eunuch, the eunuch says, “Look, there’s some water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” Good question! The answer is nothing, because nothing stands in the way of God and sinners anymore, due to Jesus’s sacrifice. Then it adds, “Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.” Again: down, not up. And then the eunuch is baptized at the hands of another, not his own. If there were a passivity dial to all of this, it would be turned up to 11.

And that brings us to the crux of the matter: baptism is, physically speaking, an easy burden, just like salvation that is freely given. It requires no effort on our part, only belief. There’s a reason why it’s closer to “Let’s go for a leisurely swim,” than, “Climb up that mountain!” The Old Testament temple was located on a mountain for this very reason: to show how heavy of a burden law-observance was, and how much fruitless effort it took to draw near to God. After working hard to pay for their sacrifices, the work wasn’t done. They had to go up.

But, again, Jesus is different. He came down to us — laying in a manger, growing up in the Podunk town of Nazareth, beginning his ministry in the Jordan River of all places. He would even die outside the city, apart from temples and laws, to get at this same idea. The New Testament is much more valley than mountain.

So Jesus chooses his sacraments carefully. Nothing is by chance, even the mode by which they’re administered. As popular as mountaintop selfies are today, they will never epitomize Christianity. Too much ascension. Too much self-optimization. It would send all the wrong messages about the gospel. Instead, we’re left with the humbling act of baptism, the river of grace that washes away our pride, and the realization that it’s not our breathlessness that matters (after a steep climb), but Jesus’s, as he’s gasping for air on the cross and giving away everything that we might have new life in him.

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