Baptism, Resurrection Power and the Power of Visual Imagery

In our last post we looked at the communal meaning behind the Christian belief in the Resurrection of the Body. In this post, I want to look at how our individualistic tendencies can often skew our understanding about the basic building blocks of what the Christian faith is about. In my Easter Sunday message prep I came across the song “Resurrection Power” by popular Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) artist Chris Tomlin. I’d like to use this song as an example of this tendency.

As far as CCM songs go, this song is pretty much par for the course. The lyrics are loosely based on Scripture, in this case Ephesians 1:19-20, where Paul prays that the Ephesians will know God’s “incomparably great power,” which is the same power that “raised Christ from the dead.” Hence, resurrection power. As with most Tomlin songs, the tune is simple, uplifting, and infectious. What is problematic is not so much the song itself, but the visual depiction of baptism in relationship to the theme of resurrection.

In order for the rest of this post to make sense, you’ll need to watch the video:

First off, I think it is right and appropriate to tie baptism with resurrection. Baptism, at its core, is a sacrament of identification. We, in baptism, identify ourselves with Christ’s identification with us, so that what is true of him is now true of us. Just as Christ died and was raised, so we have died and are raised with him in baptism. Death is symbolized by our immersion underwater — a death by drowning. In dying we are then brought up out of the water indicating the new life we receive in Christ. We see this play out in the video.

So far so good.

But notice how in the video, it is a solitary individual, unsure of where he is going, unaccompanied, driving by his lonesome out into a remote field all by himself. Did I mention he is alone? Here, I think, is where the visual story telling goes awry in depicting what baptism is about (and by association, what resurrection is about). It seems to want to say that baptism is something we can do for ourselves. I have to admit, the way the scenes are cut and edited to fit the lyrics, I feel a certain kind of triumphant elation when the man plunges himself into the water just as the song builds in its climactic turn (right around 3:12). But that’s just it. Baptism is not a triumphant achievement. It is a gift we receive in humility. We don’t plunge ourselves into the water. We are baptized. We get baptized. Baptism is something someone else does for us, not something we can do for ourselves.

What is more, baptism teaches us that we are accepted into a new community. We are baptized into a people — the body of Christ. That is why baptism is never done in isolation. It is always before a watching community. A community of those who will support and sustain us in our new life as members of Christ’s body, precisely because they are the ones who are receiving and ushering us into that body.

Now, couple all this with the oft-repeated chorus, “Now, I have resurrection power.” What we are left with is the subtle suggestion that the power of resurrection is something we possess as individuals for our empowerment as individuals. All of this is a glaring example of the unrelenting focus on the individual in so much of what is labeled Christian in our culture. The individual is not a bad thing to care about, but what often happens is that we, as the proverbial saying goes, miss the forest for the trees. We see this at the end of the video where we find that maybe there is some semblance of a community forming. But no. It turns out they are just other individuals going to out to the same field to baptize themselves. It seemed to me like a guy finding a hidden Starbucks that paved the way for others to flock to it and get their morning fix.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the song itself. I actually quite like it. It is just to say that the visual story telling draws our focus inward whereas Scripture I think wants to draw us outward, outside of ourselves (which I think is how the belief in resurrection is best understood). If we read the passage in which the title of the song is based in context (Ephesians 1:19-20), we would see that the power Paul is talking about is a power that is able to unite what has for so long been separated by enmity and strife. The nasty division between Jew and Gentile. But now, as Paul tells the mixed community of Christ’s body, by the power that brought Christ up from the dead:

19…you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Eph. 2:19-22

Now, imagine if the video for this song was set to images of reconciliation in which those who have been estranged to the Church are suddenly welcomed into the body. This is the newness that the resurrection makes possible. We have been raised with Christ into a kingdom in which the marginalized and outcast are now at home among God’s people. None are excluded. So, what if at the climactic moment of the song we do not have a man baptizing himself, but the welcoming embrace of those who were once “far-off” now brought near through the saving work of Christ.

Now that would be some resurrection power.