Baptism

Surfing can be a frustrating sport. Never mind if you have Saturday afternoon free, if the necessary ground swell isn't there, you're out of luck. So what makes a wave suitable for surfing? Typically, it's a tropical storm or hurricane that has formed hundreds of miles off shore. It's the churning of the seas miles and miles away that eventually create the waves ideal for surfing.

So what's this have to do with baptism? The waters of baptism are a physical sign of God's grace. Helpless and undeserving, we are cleansed and made righteous before God.
In the same way that surfers are dependent upon a great force outside of themselves, we who undergo the waters of baptism are dependent upon God to supply us with the grace that is unmerited and not of ourselves.

Think of the wave in the picture above as God's grace. It's huge, powerful, and a little scary...