Baptism

10-31-2021Weekly ReflectionBrian Guillot, Director of Faith Formation

The Church has three Sacraments of Initiation—Baptism, Confirmation, and Communion—that confer on the recipient full membership in the community. The process begins, of course, with Baptism. The historical roots of baptism can be found to a small degree in the purification rite ancient Judaism had for those gentiles wishing to convert. To a greater degree, the Christian idea of baptism finds its beginnings in the ministry of John the Baptist, especially in his baptism of Jesus.

Theologically, John’s baptism has more to do with reconciliation than baptism. Those who came to hear John preach desired to change their lives, to move away from sin and toward God. That is the importance of the Jordan River as the place of John’s baptism: crossing the Jordan began the Chosen People’s relationship with God in the Promised Land and the one baptized renews that relationship by promising to sin no more.

However, since Jesus is sinless, why did John baptize him? This certainly confused the early Church. The gospels answered the question as Jesus’ desire to be in solidarity with his followers. The theology of baptism that developed in the early Church is expressed mainly in some of the New Testament letters. Baptism makes us members of the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12-13), incorporating us into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (Col 2:12). Baptism purifies (Eph 5:26), cleansing our hearts from an evil conscience (Heb 10:22). Baptism requires us to live an entirely different kind of life in grace (Rom 6:14). The Christian moral life is a living out of the Paschal Mystery that our Baptism celebrates (2 Cor 4:10).

Every Sacrament has a material symbol that helps us connect with our unseen God. The symbol for Baptism is water. Water cleanses and purifies. Water brings death and life. Through water, therefore, the Sacrament of Baptism ritualizes the cleansing of our sinful natures as well as our birth into new life in Christ. We die to our old lives and are re-born into God’s family, incorporated into the Church. We are clothed in a white garment as a reminder of our newfound purity. This “unstained garment” returns as the pall at the funeral Mass. We are also given a candle as symbolic of Christ’s light. This light denotes our faith and orients us toward the worship of God.

Baptism happens with water and in “the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” By the fifth century, baptismal theology developed from both the New Testament and the early theologian of the second century. The Church’s understanding included the idea that what happened to Christ now happens to all of us at Baptism. We are reborn to a new life and given the Holy Spirit as an empowerment to live IN Christ and IN his body, the Church. The Spirit is conferred after the actual baptism by an anointing into the three roles of Christ as priest, prophet, and king. In the first few centuries of Christianity, this anointing at Baptism was reserved to the Bishop.