Welcoming One Home

Opening the door, giving handshakes or hugs, and saying, “Come on in,” concludes the opening ceremonies in most Western homes. In Nagaland, India, “come on in” often accompanies the host offering the guest a glass of water and, in South India, a cup of chai (tea). In many Asian cultures, people remove their shoes or slippers to enter a host’s house, and in my Korean friend’s house, they offer a clean pair of slippers to wear within the home.

In ancient cultures, hosts offered water to wash one’s dirty feet as they entered the house. It was a sign of hospitality. Many wealthy Hebrew homes had a mikva’ot, a little dug-out area with water outside the door, for people to enter and wash their feet. As stated in a wedding at Cana, some houses had pots of water for cleansing rituals. Washing the feet (hands and faces, too) signified a person was clean and safe to enter a host’s house. Entering the water to cleanse oneself was called vaptisma or baptisma, which in English is called “baptism.” It meant “dipping” in water. Vaptisma was used for other tasks, such as dipping clothing into colored water to dye them or even dipping vessels to draw water from wells and streams.

John, the son of Zechariah, received the Lord’s word while he was in the wilderness, a place without water. He couldn’t ask people to dip their feet into the water to signify cleansing in the wilderness.

“He went to all the surrounding villages of Judea proclaiming a vaptisma of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Luke 3:3)

These five words – baptism, repentance, for, forgiveness, sins – have a range of meanings and have been highly contested over the centuries. To understand these words, Luke gave us a clue: a quotation from Isaiah 40. Isaiah 1–39 talked about the Hebrews’ rebellion against God and their abandonment consequently. In Isaiah 40, however, God spoke comfort to his people. They had suffered enough; he would interfere and rescue them. So, he sent . . .

“A voice shouting in the wilderness, saying, ‘Prepare the Lord’s way, make straight his path. Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled. The crooked paths will be straightened, and the rugged paths softened. Then, every flesh will see the salvation of the Lord.’” (Luke 3:4–6; Isaiah 40:3–5)

God gave a series of pictures to show that their relationship had been mended. His salvation had come.

John was asking the people to dip themselves (or their feet) in the water as a sign of their repentance (i.e., turning back to God) because God has forgiven their sins; he has returned with salvation and deliverance. They were no longer in physical and spiritual exile from the Lord their God. Their washing was a sign of receiving God’s welcome to enter his house and fellowshipping with him as friends, not as enemies. Their salvation has come.

Over the centuries, this meaning of baptism as a sign of welcome into someone’s house has disappeared, and it has become a ritual and a symbol of “conversion.” Just as God asked Moses to take off his shoes in that sacred space to sit and commune with him, he asks his people even today to wash their feet and sit down with him to have fellowship with him. That’s the beauty of our salvation – the freedom to enter his house and commune with him because our sins have been forgiven.