A few weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and was unable to fall back asleep. My mind had wandered to all the things I had to do the next day and worry started to creep in about how I was going to finish everything. The longer I laid there, the more anxious I became.  Fear and doubt began to create an inner strom in my own mind.

This story takes place directly following the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. We see that the baptism of repentance is referenced once again. This introduction to repentance we saw from John the Baptist, when he completed his work of “Preparing the way” (Matthew 3). People’s hearts were familiar with repentance and being washed clean, but Peter expanded this idea, declaring that they would receive the Holy Spirit after believing in God.

Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, decided to record the Great Commission of Christ in the Book of Acts, the story of the early church. In this, we are given other information from before the ascension of Christ.

Many people will recognize this as the Great Commission, Christ's final instruction to His followers. In this, Christ gave the instruction to make disciples of all nations, meaning make followers of Christ everywhere, and commanded us to baptize them (Matthew 28:19). Baptism is God’s sign and seal, like a ring on the finger of a spouse, marking us as belonging to Christ.

There is a lot going on in this Scripture, but right now I want to focus on the imagery of baptism. In the story of Noah, we see that God washed the world clean through the flood. The concept of baptism is connected to the story of Noah. The difference now is that baptism is the outward sign that our souls are made right before God because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.