Few things can compare for me with baptizing an adult. Most of us standing in the font on that wondrous night are filled with a holy jealousy, as we watch men and women walk into the water one way and leave another.

It’s often said about parents that they’re only as happy as their least happy child. I have always admired this about the moms and dads I know. There is no time off, or away from, their children – no matter how old they are. Indeed, their hearts ache for their children.

A Jewish son, heir to his father’s significant wealth, runs out of that wealth and then hires himself out – sells himself to another – to feed … pigs. Pigs! A Jewish man enslaves himself to feed an unclean animal that he himself cannot eat. This is a truly pathetic state.

Jesus, the new Moses, stretched out His hands, not over a body of water, but over the kingdom of Death, over the very grave of the one man through whom Death had entered so long ago. And just as the Red Sea was torn in two, the kingdom of Death was split asunder, forever losing its tyranny on our race; and the strong man who deceived our first parents in Eden and held our race captive ever since, was bound by the stronger One