Baptism - Why I do not see "obedience" as the main thing

I'm intending to pick up some older threads in the upcoming weeks, and wanted to start with a brief look at baptism. This is not here approached as an analysis of all the texts or arguments, more as a starting place for discussion.

If a parent tells a child to wash, and they wash, there's an aspect of obedience in that. But if the child asks, "Why?" I'm not sure the parent would answer "Because I said so." Was the washing nothing more than to show the parent's authority and check the child's obedience, or was there a genuine reason for washing? Was the parent using their authority as a test for the child, or was there something there for the child's benefit?

I can imagine someone making a case that obedience is itself the most helpful habit in the child: How could the child receive any benefits, ever, from following the parent's instructions if they never in fact followed those instructions? It's a fair enough question; it's also a fair question exactly what kind of relationship the child has to the parent. Is the parent working for the benefit of the child? Jesus encourages us to think of our relationship with God as to a Father who knows and cares what we need.

Jesus sends out his followers to make new disciples by baptizing and teaching, and those early days recorded in the New Testament speak of a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Some people seem to be offended at the idea that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, and the objection seems to be roughly "If baptism brings us God's forgiveness, and baptism is an act of obedience, then we'd be earning forgiveness by our obedience. We know that's not right -- so baptism can't be about forgiveness." But what if it it's not about obedience?

If it were simply a matter of obedience there would be no need for water to be involved; the water would be arbitrary. God might as well have asked for us to do anything, if the only point was for us to do it. Based on Scripture I find it far more likely that God is trying to tell us something, that his choice to use water means something. 

The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that God works with us in a way we can understand. He has promised forgiveness. He gives us water for washing: we recognize that as a way to make something clean, new, and pure. He relates to us in a way that we can see every day when we wash. It's not our obedience that makes us clean; it is his washing away our sins that makes us clean. Baptism really is about forgiveness, and washing us clean, and making us new. None of that has so much to do with our obedience as God's mercy, his goodwill towards us.