Why if babies don't get baptized, it will be all right.

First, we might ask a question that was asked of me during my ordination exam thirty years ago: Why do we have to be baptized? Isn't Jesus' cross sufficient. I was then asked that same question again during my PNC interview in Wisconsin by the noble David Herum, clerk of session and overseer of the congregation there. I didn't have a good answer thirty years ago but things are shaping up! First, water and the cross go together like a magnet to a refrigerator. We see in Isaiah 52:13 through the end of 55 that this is a repeat (reiteration) of the Exodus. Just as Naaman was told by Elisha to go and wash in the crick called Jordan in order to "get in on" the Exodus of the beni Israel, so too John dunked people in the Jordan so that they could "get in on" the preparation for the Greater Exodus that was to come. Our dunkings (unfortunately usually sprinklings) in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are our entrance into this Greater Exodus accomplished at Jerusalem. There is no philosophical explanation for why we are baptized, we are baptized instead through story, midrash...how God puts things together, i.e., water/the Exodus with the suffering slave who dies on a cross. But what if a baby doesn't get sprinkled with water and then that little one passes away. What happens then? No fear, the cross itself is our washing with water (Hebrews 10:22, John 13:1-20 etc.).