A year after taking a position as a seminary professor, I discovered the secret fame of one of my colleagues.

For years, the hymn “Child of Blessing, Child of Promise” (umh, no. 611) has been one of my favorites. It beautifully expresses that baptized children come from God, belong to God, and have their deepest identity in God. One Sunday morning, while we were singing this hymn, I glanced down to the bottom of the page and saw the name of a colleague, whose office is down the hall from mine, noted as the author of the hymn. The next time I saw him in the copy room, I almost asked for his autograph.

I think of that hymn now as I reflect on Peter’s words, “And baptism . . . now saves you.” Does that mean we have to be baptized to go to heaven? Sometimes we have a very narrow understanding of what it means to be saved. We think it’s about going to heaven or not. But many strands of the Christian tradition view salvation more broadly as knowing and growing in one’s identity as a child of God. To be saved is to grow into that identity, to become more like the God whose children we are.

If we think of salvation in these broader terms, then what Peter says makes sense. We are saved in baptism because in baptism God’s grace marks us with our truest identity. We come to discover ourselves as God’s children, children of both blessing and promise. Salvation begins when we know who we most truly are—God’s children—and begin the lifelong journey of growing in love as we become more like the love revealed to us in the resurrection of Christ.