Spotlight on Symbols -- #2

Ship

May 28, 2006

 In the upper left hand corner of the chancel window is a crest bearing the image of a ship on a storm tossed sea.  While the ship is always a symbol for the Church, the water stands for a couple of phenomena in the Christian life.
 
Most simply, the Church is represented by a ship on a stormy sea because in it the Lord protects his people through all the tumults of the world and safely delivers them to heaven by his mercy.  It was probably the story of the ark which moved someone to craft an image of a ship to represent the Church.  Certainly God’s saving Noah and his family from the flood reminded Peter of God’s purposes in the Church.  He wrote, “. . .God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.  Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Pt 3:20-22). 

This crest in our window reminds us of at least two points that Peter makes.  First, baptism is our initiation into the Church of Jesus Christ.  Ordinarily water baptism is applied to the covenant children of the faithful and symbolizes the need for that child to be reborn of the Spirit and cleansed from sin.  It also seals to the consciences of parents the many promises made to them in Scripture that God will not only be a God to them but to their children as well—that he delights to cause his covenant to run through lines of generations as children grow up in the nurture and gospel admonition of their parents (Is. 59:21; Acts 2:39).  Further, at a child’s baptism (or an adult’s for that matter) we are celebrating the fact that the baptized has come into the care of a new family called the Church.  All of that Peter had in mind as he wrote these verses.  He clarified that he did not mean that the ritual act of baptism itself saved the person, but rather that it denoted the fact that this person had come into the covenant community of the Church—the place where God intensely focuses all of the blessings which fill out the whole course of one’s salvation.  That is, it is primarily in the Church where one hears the preaching and application of the Gospel, benefits from the sacraments, experiences Christian community, participates in Kingdom ministry, grows through biblical discipleship, is corrected by gracious discipline, and is shaped by Christ-centered worship.  So when one is baptized we celebrate his or her walking through or being carried through the door of the Church into the arena where he or she will become a participant in God’s redemptive drama. 

But let’s change the metaphor back to the ship to get Peter’s second point.  To put it in maritime language, the baptized boards a bark that will encounter every kind of weather, even stormy.  Baptism does not bring one into a life of ease.  In fact, following Christ requires one to take up his cross and so identify with Christ that the pattern of Christ’s life becomes his; namely, suffering before glory.  That is why the waves around this ship in our window are tumultuous—life as a Christian is not easy.  However, remember Peter said that while the water destroyed the rest of the world which disobeyed God it served to save Noah and his family (members of the Old Testament Church) by floating their boat.  That means that in the Christian life, God uses suffering to advance the faith of his Church, not destroy it (Ja 1:2-4).  So baptism marks the occasion when one is initiated into a life of discipleship (“the pledge of a good conscience toward God”) which will include at times stormy seas of suffering.  But God promises that with his love he will absolutely protect his Church through that suffering, even using it to perfect their faith (Ro 8:18-39).    

Very succinctly, Jesus announces to all would-be disciples his program of suffering and his promise of protection:  “In this world you will have trouble, but I have come that you might have peace” (Jn 16:33).  Let us now pass that same peace one to another.