Over the weekend, on the coast at Bridlington, England, more than five hundred people walked into cold water on purpose. The headline put the number at 550. They came to be baptized — to say out loud, in front of witnesses and wind and whatever bystanders happened to be on the beach, that they belong to Jesus Christ. One of them said afterward, I still can't believe what God did.
I keep turning that picture over. Not a heated tank. Not a warm Sunday with a towel waiting. Grey water, a sea that does not care how you feel about it, and a line of people choosing to go in anyway.
An old question, asked on a roadside
There is a moment in the book of Acts that reads like it happened last weekend. Philip is walking a desert road beside the chariot of an official from Ethiopia, explaining Isaiah to him. And then this:
"And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, 'See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?' And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him" (Acts 8:36-38).
What prevents me? It is one of the great questions of the New Testament, and notice who asks it. Not the preacher. The new believer asks it. Philip did not have to talk him into anything. Something had already gripped the man's heart on that road, and the moment he saw water he wanted in.
That is what I think I am looking at on a beach in England. Five hundred people, give or take, who stopped asking what it would cost them to be cold and wet for ten minutes and started asking what on earth was still standing between them and Jesus.
The water is never comfortable
Here is the quiet truth underneath the story: obedience almost never arrives at a convenient temperature.
We would all prefer that the step God is asking of us came with pleasant conditions. Forgive that person — once the sting has faded. Tell your coworkers you follow Jesus — once you are sure nobody will make it awkward. Get baptized — once you have your life more sorted out, once you understand more, once you feel more worthy of it.
But the gospel does not wait for ideal weather, because it was never about our readiness in the first place. Paul writes that "we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). You do not go under that water because you have become impressive. You go under it because Someone else already did the dying, and you are saying so with your whole body.
The cold is almost the point. It makes the yes cost something small and real. It turns a private thought into a public fact.
He is still doing this
I want to say plainly what I believe about that beach. Five hundred people do not independently decide on the same weekend to wade into freezing water. Someone was at work on them — in kitchens and cars and late nights, long before anyone unfolded a towel. The Holy Spirit is not a historical figure confined to Acts chapter 8. He still finds people on ordinary roads. He still opens up the Scriptures so that something clicks. He still puts a holy restlessness in a person until they look around and say, here is water — what is stopping me?
And He is doing it here too, in West Michigan, in families and farmhouses and lunch breaks in Muskegon, quieter than a headline but no less real.
So let me ask you the eunuch's question back. What is preventing you? Not from baptism only — though if you have never been baptized, that is worth settling, and it is simpler than you think. What is preventing you from the next honest step of obedience you already know about? Usually the answer is not a theological problem. Usually it is the temperature of the water.
If you have questions you have never felt free to ask out loud, bring them to Bible Study on Wednesday at 11:30. That is exactly the kind of room it is. Nobody is grading you. Philip did not make the man on the road pass a test; he just told him about Jesus and then stopped the chariot.
And if today you feel more like someone standing on the sand than someone in the water — still hesitating, still unsure, still carrying something you think disqualifies you — hear this gently: the One who called those five hundred is not far from you either. He has never once been put off by a person who came in slowly. He is already in the water, waiting, and the invitation is open.
Join us this Sunday at 10:30am — Outpouring Worship Center, Ravenna.