in English, you have to pick one. When you read Matthew in its original Greek, however, you can sit much closer to the mystery — just as Christians have been doing for thousands of years — and wonder, what did God mean by that?
Well, water is scary. You go under water, you can't breathe. It's a picture of death and of the grave, and always has been, Biblically. The flood, God floods the world, that is a baptism, Peter tells us in 1st Peter, chapter 3. God sends Jonah into the deep, into the water,...