BAPTISM | JELLY MOULDS (1 PET. 3:18-22)

Speaker: Pastor Tristan Sherwin

Here’s my longer notes from this morning's baptism service, at Metro Christian Centre (22nd February, 2026).

Baptisms, for me, are always a highlight. They’re joyful, moving, and full of hope.

But they also raise big questions.

Like, what are we actually doing?

Whenever we baptise someone, I feel the need to say at least a "little" about that—though I know I can never explain it all. But this morning, I also wanted to speak personally to the person being baptised, L.

You can also catch up with this via MCC’s YouTube channel (just give us time to get the video uploaded).

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‘A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.’ —G. K. Chesterton[i]

READ: 1 PETER 3:18-22 (NET)

I know what you’re thinking: If I were choosing a baptism text for a teenager, I might not instinctively reach for 1 Peter 3.

It’s dense, complex and hotly debated. And because it speaks about Christ preaching to imprisoned spirits[ii], and the days of Noah[iii], and links all this to baptism, it is notorious for being the most difficult New Testament passage to interpret.

There are questions we bring to this text that people have wrestled with for eons—and I’m not going to wade into any of that this morning (although, for the curious, there are some chunks of thought in my endnotes).

I want to keep, really, to why Peter is writing these things, and I want to speak specifically to L, who is getting baptised.

And as I was thinking about these words, and your baptism, my mind went back to when I was a kid and my mum used to make that delicious and colourful substance known as Jelly.

I say make… but I mean that very loosely. The reality was that my mum would use a pack undiluted jelly cubes. I used to eat them straight from the pack! But my mum would take them, melt them down with hot water, and then pour that mixture into a jelly mould.

In our house, the jelly mould was in the pattern of a rabbit—and, as you would expect, once the jelly was set and taken (very carefully) out of the mould, the jelly was in the shape of a donkey!

Of course not. It was a colourful, and very tasty, rabbit.

It’s not rocket science: Whatever the mould, the jelly takes on it’s shape.

You could say, that the jelly corresponds to the picture of the mould.

Peter talks about baptism in the same sense.

He doesn’t talk about jelly—which is a shame.

Instead, in verse 21, he uses an analogy his own audience would understand in their day-

to-day living.

There are two Greek words in this verse—one (ἀντίτυπον, antitypos) that we translate as either pictures, symbolises¸ or corresponds with; and the other (ἐπερώτημα, eperōtēma) that we translate as either appeal, response or pledge.

In Peter’s day, both terms were used when describing the impression that was made in wax to seal a document.

If there was an official document to sign, then instead of a signature like we use today, there would be some wax dropped onto the bottom of the scroll, and the person “signing” the document would stamp or press their unique seal, their unique pattern into the wax. As such, this reshaped wax would be seen as a pledge.[iv]

In other words, like jelly taking on the shape of its mould, the pledge corresponds to pattern of the seal. One thing takes on the image the other.

And so, baptism.[v]

ID

The crux of what I’m talking about really, is identity. Baptism is a statement of identity.

Because the question beneath this moment is not simply, ‘What do we believe?’ (though this is important). The deeper question is: ‘Whose are we?’

Whose verdict defines us?

Whose applause do we live for?

Whose image do we carry?

Which mould is shaping the life of L?

For L, as a teenager, that question is not theoretical—it’s a lived experience. I remember what it was like being your age. If you are a teenager right now, you are in one of the most intense seasons of identity formation in your life. You are endlessly being told — subtly and explicitly — who you should be.

Your peers are trying to mould you, as does your school culture. The social media algorithms are shaping you. Your own fears and your own ambitions are also tugging you in all directions, not to mention the expectations of your parents! (And they’re good parents).

It’s hard being fifteen!

Adolescence, I found, was a season of naming and being named. It feels like you are always under pressure one way or the other, as you’re constantly being interpreted, evaluated, measured. Our teenage years are often moulded by comparison — academically, socially, athletically, aesthetically. You feel pressed, on all sides, to take on some sort of shape, and often, a multitude of different shapes for any given place or set of circumstances. And you learn, very quickly, how powerful it is when you fit in, as well as how awkward and painful it is when you don’t.

Belonging is powerful. Every teenager feels the gravitational pull of belonging to a particular mould and the tension of difference—we all do; it doesn’t go away with age. Because whoever we are, we were made for community. But community always comes with norms. And norms always come with expectations. And expectations always come with applause—or with ‘booing.’

And the crowd is fickle. The crowd can cheer. The crowd can turn. The crowd can redefine you in a instant. One moment you are ‘in’ and then, with the blink of an eye, you are ‘out’—and by a long, long way.

I know you have already experienced some of that, L.

Again, as adults, too, this pressure still exists. Every day we are surrounded by a million moulds and some of us live our lives slipping from one mould to the next. Unlike Jelly, we never really set; we remain liquid, pouring ourselves not so much into one thing after the other, but out of one thing and into the next, seeking meaning, approval, comfort, love … applause … seeking simply to ‘fit in.’

The waves of the world crash into us relentlessly, trying to mould us in their fashion, and we often let them take us wherever and just go with the flow.

But it’s a totally different thing when you choose not to be liquid anymore and you choose to ‘set’—especially when you choose to ‘set’ your sights on Christ Jesus.

As Peter states, baptism is not a bath—it’s not the removal of dirt from the body. It’s not a ritual cleansing. The water itself does not save you; the resurrection of Jesus saves. Rather, in baptism, you are making an embodied declaration that your conscience, your identity, L, has been imprinted on by God; that His mould is the mould you are “setting” yourself to.

I think this is extraordinary, inspirational and amazing. It always thrills me whenever anyone chooses to follow Jesus. But when a young person does it, all the more so. It’s a courageous act. Well done for following Jesus.

But, as Peter writes in this whole letter —and I am sure you’re aware of this— following Jesus does not guarantee social ease.

‘Setting’ in Jesus, corresponding to his pattern, does not go down well in a world that offers you a million moulds and allegiances, while simultaneously asking you to remain fluid in your allegiances.

AGAINST THE ODDS

When Peter writes these words, he is writing to young churches and scattered believers living on the margins of the Roman world. They are not the majority, they are not shaping culture; they are struggling to navigate it, because they no longer fit the mould of the culture around them. Because of this, they are often misunderstood, slandered, pressured, and even persecuted.

Like many believers around our world today.

They are a minority who have declared their allegiance to Jesus, and they are finding themselves at odds with the much larger cultural forces and structures of influence around them. They feel small, fragile, and that the odds are against them.

Peter’s chooses his words deliberately, and he doesn’t try to make them, in their sense of smallness, feel bigger. Instead, he reminds that the life they are now experiencing—this sense of not fitting in, because, in their baptism, they have chosen the mould of Jesus—often carries this sense of the odds being against us. But small does not mean wrong. And, more critically, Christ is victorious!

He talks about Noah. Following God made Noah stand out; he must have looked like an absolute lemon in comparison to his peers. Noah’s life was shaped by an entirely different set of priorities than those who lived around him. But, though he stuck out like a sore thumb—and only seven other people stood with him—he was vindicated and proved right in the end.

More importantly, Peter mentions Jesus’ own example: In the shape of Jesus’ own life—the very pattern we are being moulded into—there are contours of being misunderstood, slandered and, ultimately, crucified.

From a human perspective, in the eyes of the cultural norms around him, Jesus’ obedience led to loss. His faithfulness only led to suffering, and death. Other New Testament writers talk about the how ‘foolish’ and ‘scandalous’ the way of the cross is their culture’s eyes.

In the eyes of his peers, Jesus looked like the world’s biggest loser—they laughed at him and mocked him. Most of human history, based on our self-inclined and success-driven norms, still laughs at him.

But, as Peter notes, Jesus’ suffering was not the final reality. He was vindicated. Raised. Declared right by God. And as Peter yells in his climax, in verse 22, it is now Jesus who judges all of history and not the other way around.

Peter’s message is clear: You may not fit in; being ‘set’ in Jesus will mean that you feel the pressure moulds of the world squeezing you all the more—they’d prefer you to be liquid. But, although everything will feel larger than you—the systems, cultural forces, spiritual realities, structures of influence—all of it is subject to Him.

In short, despite the complex questions we bring to Peter’s references, his word are preparing believers for the emotional experience of following Christ in a world that does not necessarily reward it.

These words are also for you, L.

When you are baptised today, you are not stepping into a comfortable identity. It will not always be easy.

There will be moments—perhaps quiet, perhaps public—where following Jesus’ mould will be costly. Where your instincts, shaped by Christ, do not align with the dominant cultural mould around you, and you will feel like a lemon and like a loser.

Again, you are not stepping into a comfortable identity.

But, you’re also not placing your life in the hands of the fading trends of the herd mentality or the fragile and ever-shifting popular opinions of the crowd. You are stepping into a far more durable identity. You are placing it under the eternal reign of the risen Christ.

AGAINST THE TIDE

You are small. That is true.

The pressures will feel larger than you. The moulds of this world will press in. They will invite you to stay liquid — to keep adjusting, reshaping, blending in.

But, as the famous writer, G. K. Chesterton put it, it’s a dead thing that goes with the stream. Only a living thing can go against it.

Baptism is not drifting. It is resistance; it is choosing a mould — and setting.

So, when you go into these waters, you are not claiming to be strong. You are not claiming that you will never wobble—all jelly wobbles. You are not claiming perfection.

You are saying …

 … I refuse to remain liquid and allow the current to decide my shape.

 … I have been brought to God by Christ who suffered once for sins.

 … I belong to the crucified and risen King.

 … My conscience bears His seal. And the One whose imprint I carry is not small: He is at the right hand of God, and all authorities and powers are subject to Him.

So yes, L, you may feel little, it may be intimidating.

But the mould shaping your life is eternal. And whatever takes the shape of Christ will stand long after the streams, trends and flood waters have passed.

Amen.

‘Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.’ —Jesus, Matthew 7:24 (NLT)

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ENDNOTES & REFERENCES:

[i] G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), The Everlasting Man, Part II: On the Man Called Christ, Chapter 6: The Five Deaths of the Faith (Contained within: G. K. CHESTERTON Ultimate Collection: 200+ Novels, Historical Works, Theological Books, Essays, Short Stories, Plays & Poems: Autobiography, Father Brown Mysteries, The Napoleon of Notting Hill…. (p. 7480). e-artnow. Kindle Edition).

A similar saying is attributed to the American actor and comedian W. C. Fields (1880–1946): ‘Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.’ The problem is, I can’t source this. Could it be possible that he was quoting Chesterton, whose The Everlasting Man was published in 1925? Who knows.

[ii] Initially, I was going to preach an entirely different message, attempting to tug at, and somehow unwind, the theological cord connecting the three motifs economically, and obscurely, woven together by Peter (Christ’s Death, Resurrection and Victory; The Great Flood; Believer’s Baptism). However, after many days of head scratching and drafts, I decided that this road, though possibly helpful to some, would prove unhelpful in the context of our baptism service. Plus, in trying to explain the questions that we bring to the this text, important as they are, I felt that I was moving away from Peter’s own reasoning of writing the text; which is to encourage young believers, despite the odds of their smallness and in the face of turmoil, to stick to the mould baptism has pledged them to, knowing that Christ is victorious overall which seeks to engulf and overwhelm them. They may look foolish in the world’s eyes (1 Peter 4:4), and this may (and did) endanger them, but they will be vindicated.

Regardless of our best intentions to understand, a) Who Christ preached to (what is meant by the ‘spirits’)? And b) When he did this? And c) What was the content of this preaching?, Peter’s main intention should never be overlooked. Or, to put it another way, ‘the wood should not be lost for the trees.’

However, for the enquiring, who are new to the complexities of this text, the three main schools of interpreting 1 Peter 3:19-20, are as follows:

(1) The section refers to pre-incarnate preaching (i.e., that Christ preached through Noah, at the time of the Ark’s building, in the Old Testament era, to Noah's wicked contemporaries while they were still alive). He called them to repentance, but they disobeyed and are now imprisoned.

(2) This passage refers to pre-resurrection preaching (i.e., preaching that occurred between Christ's death and resurrection, during a "descent into hell").

One variation of this view holds that Christ pronounced his victory and their doom to the spirits of Noah's wicked contemporaries in the place of the dead, whilst leading the faithful out of death’s captivity.

Another variation of this, is that Christ gave the disobedient the gospel and a further opportunity to believe.

A further version of the pre-resurrection approach holds that Christ proclaimed the same message to fallen angels, who are often identified with the "sons of God" of Genesis 6:2, 4, in their place of confinement. This view is heavily reliant upon a late Jewish apocryphal writing know as 1 Enoch and its story of the Watchers.

To put in my penny’s worth on this variation: I think this view places too much stock in Second Temple theological speculation more than the biblical account. While it is true that Peter’s audience likely knew the extra-biblical story, 1 Peter mentions that the spirits in prison are those who formerly disobeyed when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark. Noah’s fellow humans can only be in mind, for nowhere in the Bible or in Jewish literature outside of the Bible are angels ever said to have disobeyed 'during the building of the ark', nor are they given the chance to repent generally. People often appeal to the passage slightly prior to the Flood story, in Genesis 6:1-4, where the ‘Sons of God’ (understood to be fallen angelic beings, again in the Enoch account of the Watchers) slept with humans. This passage is also hotly debated (especially in understanding what is meant by ‘the sons of god’). However, regardless of how it is understood, Genesis 6:5-13, stating the reasoning for the flood, clearly emphasizes human sin as the cause of the earth’s corruption, depravity and violence (with God’s “lamentation” at creating humanity). Moreover, in only a few sentences later, in 1 Peter 4:4, Peter will once again mention preaching to the dead (a wording which only has connotations for human life [add into this, that, in 2 Peter 2:4-5, Peter separates as distinct categories the ‘angelic’ (thrown into prison) and the ‘ancient world/humanity’ (lost in the flood, unheeding of God’s message)].

Of course, it could be, as some commentators have suggested, that Peter, aware of the Enoch tradition’s popularity within his audience, draws from the Watcher story of 1 Enoch, akin to a sermon analogy, to speak relevantly to his audience, just as we would draw on a television show, etc. But his appropriation of a known story from an extra-Biblical text does not automatically equate to an endorsement of the story. For example, in 2 Peter 2:4, Peter will drop in the name Tartaros—his usage of this place, taken from Greco-Roman theology, should not be taken to mean that Peter is underwriting Greek cosmological constructs of the universe or that he is ‘baptising’ Greek theological reflection.

Rant over…

(3) Finally, there’s the view that these two verses refer to post-resurrection preaching (i.e., Christ proclaimed his victory over all powers at the time of his ascension into heaven: Death, Satan and Sin, and all constructs—physical or spiritual—under their sway).

Personally … I’m still thinking it through. Even though I have often leant towards a ‘harrowing of Hades’ understanding, prompted by my readings of Alexander and Athanasius (both ‘of Alexandria’), I’m still left with many loose ends.

Whatever the case may be, the final point (3)—regardless of the ‘when’—is the point Peter is making, and it is the climax he arrives at with verse 22: Christ has been exalted, above all powers—human and non-human. All angels, authorities and powers are bowing before him. He suffered, but he was vindicated, and it is he alone who judges history.

In the words of Scot McKnight, who also offers his own succinct summary of the views above: ‘[R]egardless of the view one takes, I would emphasize at this point the need to see this passage in light of its context: the overall theme of vindication. Jesus was righteous and suffered for the unrighteous; God vindicated him by exalting him to his right hand. The churches of Peter need to know that if they remain faithful, like Jesus they too will be vindicated. That is the hope that ought to sustain them as they endure suffering, the hope of which they are to be ready to speak, and the hope that Peter urges them to embrace.’ [Scot McKnight, 1 Peter, The NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1996), pp. 215–217]

[iii] I was (in addition to the above) going to give a brief contrast of how the Genesis story of the Flood differs from the ancient Mesopotamian stories already circulating within the ancient cultural setting of the original Abrahamic peoples, comparing the Sumerian (Akkadian) epic of Gilgamesh and the old Babylonian poem of Atrahasis with Genesis. One stark difference (of many) is that of the motivation for the flood. Across all the Mesopotamian versions (and variations of versions), the gods are driven to madness by the continual noise of the ever-multiplying human population; the human population, originally created to be the ‘slaves’ of the gods, are akin to the modern equivalent of having ‘neighbours from hell’, so to speak. And so, the chief god, exhausted and sleep-deprived from all the clamour, decides to send a flood to silence humanity once and for all (this, I will add, is a final strike after previously failing to control the population through pestilence, famine and disease). Whereas, in the Genesis account, the flood is not the exhaustion-fuelled ‘reaction’ of a god desiring a good night’s sleep. In Genesis, the motivation is justice; God is immensely moved and heartbroken over the deep-rooted evil and violence he witnesses corrupting creation and humanity. Those motivations are poles apart: One pictures the gods’ apathy towards human affairs (the judgement is not over what is ‘good’ or ‘evil’) and is a self-preserving act; the other speaks of a God who is prompted to act in the face of corruption—a corruption that does not impose any discomfort on God, but on our own world. In the ancient world, one of these certainly offered a better way of thinking (good news, even) about the nature of the divine. Thinking of our own modern context, which we would prefer to believe?

If you want to read the ancient Mesopotamian accounts, then I would recommend: Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, A new translation by Stephanie Dalley (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Regarding the historicity of the flood, I’m not going to wade into debates. Although, it is fascinating to consider that, in the words of Susan Wise-Bauer:

‘The history of the earth (so geologists tell us) has been punctuated by great catastrophes which apparently wiped out entire categories of life. But only one echoes down in the words and stories of a dozen different races. … The historian cannot ignore the Great Flood; it is the closest thing to a universal story that the human race possesses.’ [Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome (W. W. Norton, New York, London, 2007), pp. 10-11, emphasis mine.]

Bauer goes on to explore the prevalence of a flood story, not only in the Ancient Near East, but also the Americas, noting that, in all the accounts, amidst a lot of diverse stories, there are common ingredients: ‘So what happened? Water flooded man’s world; and someone suspected, before the flood, that disaster was on its way.’ (p. 14)

[iv] By the way, this is where we get the term ‘signet ring’ from. Before they became a modern fashion accessory, they were about ‘signing’ documents, etc. by being pressed into clay or wax.

[v] As always, I never say it all at any given baptism service, but I do at least attempt to say something. For other messages wrestling with baptism, see: Into the Abyss; Resurrection Sunday & Baptism; Why Are You Wet?; Plunged People.