Baptism: Reflections

 

Baptism

We're scheduled to celebrate Holy Baptism on All Saints Sunday, Nov. 7. It seemed to me that it might be useful to reflect on "baptism" in general as we approach this watershed time in the lives of Bill and Melody's grandchildren, Anna Claire Powell and Reid William Taylor.

One of the songs I love to sing on that day is "When the saints go marching in." It's not because I'm a New Orleans Saints fan. It is, perhaps, because in my teens I adored the music of Louis Armstrong. For me, the inclusion of Jazz music into the liturgy brings joy to my smile. Memorably the first verse includes:

Oh, when the saints go marching in
Oh Lord I want to be in that number

We might associate that with a future time of deliverance. The original song no doubt did. But it has always been for me a song very much about the living. Dancing, processing, with vibrancy and passion.

That's the tone that the service of baptism has for me.

Baptism ritual

As I wrote about in an earlier blog, the revisions of the 1970's to our prayer book made explicit a (relatively new) emphasis on baptism by immersion. The rubrics indicate that "Each candidate is presented by name to the Celebrant, or to an assisting priest or deacon, who then immerses, or pours water upon, the candidate,..." Making "immersion the first option indicates that the new rite of baptism understands "immersion" to be the norm. Pouring water is entirely valid.

The sequence of actions in the liturgy are as follows:

1. The candidates for baptism are presented. The sponsors and candidates are asked a series of questions which have the effect of proclaiming the rejection of an old way of thinking and of life and turning to a new one, founded on God and God's power of Grace working in the world.
2. The ancient proclamation of that new way is recited in the form of the Baptismal Creed (Apostles' Creed.)
3. Then follows a series of questions intended to provide an overview of the Christian life.
4. Since such a commitment is only possible with divine help, we then pray for the candidates.
5. At this point water becomes the focus. Water is poured and blessed in preparation for the actual baptism
6. Each candidate is baptized with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The celebrant then anoints the newly baptized, saying, "N., you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever. Amen."
7. The service then normally continues with the Eucharist. Ancient custom understands Eucharist and Baptism to be intimately connected.

Long ago I heard an Orthodox priest describe in a simplified their understanding of baptism. He said, "When a child is born there are 3 actions that are a normal part of the new life of the child. First the child is cleansed, given a bath. Then the child is clothed to give it shelter. Finally the child is fed." The priest said that this was analogous to what happens in baptism: one is cleansed with the water, one is wrapped in the Holy Spirit through the anointing, and one is fed with the bread of life in the Eucharist.

Baptismal Life

The series of questions that are part of the examination are a powerful shorthand description of our task as Christians in the world. They are succinct and provocative, capable directing our prayers and decisions throughout a lifetime. They are as follows:

Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

The answer to each is:

I will, with God's help.

Abundance in the Sacraments

One of my most important lessons about the sacraments of the church in general and of baptism in particular had to do with a recognition that sacraments point (as a sacred sign) toward the Grace that comes from God. God's love is not squeamish. It is not skimpy or stingy. It is in fact lavish, over-abundant, and "more than we could every hope for or imagine." To effectively point to such grace, sacraments ought appropriately to be themselves abundant, lavish, and pointing beyond ourselves.

That is in part the reason for using lots of water in the baptism. One of my most memorable baptisms was in Honolulu where, as the candidate and I stood in the pool of water, the skies opened up with a torrent of rain. That was a great and abundant blessing.

Baptism and Formation

In the 1990's I participated in a variety of training and empowering workshops as the Episcopal Church worked at restoring the ancient practice and extensive preparation for baptism known as the Catechumenate. As the Catholic church went through the same process, their ritual became known as Rite of Christian Initition of Adults (RCIA). This series of rituals and practices is ancient in as much as in the early centuries of the church the normal route to baptism was by adults. Only after it become normal that all adults in a society were Christians did the baptism of infants become the norm.

In our own day and into the future we can expect that the normal route for baptism will be by adult conversion. In ancient times it is said that the formation expected of such adults was more akin to the formation we expect of clergy. The culmination of the catechumenate formation was baptism, which marked the beginning of a life-long journey as a Christian.

As a participant in a weekend retreat, I offered an analogy for those who accompany a person journeying through the catechumenate as similar to a midwife guiding and nurturing a woman through her journey of pregnancy, culminating in the birth of a child.

In a recent conversation about baptism, I offered an analogy for baptism that I had never heard or used before. I suggested that baptism was similar to the initiation that occurred in J.R.R. Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring. Baptism initiates one into the fellowship of Christians as the various individuals were initiated into the fellowship of the ring.

These are only analogies in as much as they don't tell us exhaustively what it means to be baptized. They are analogies, however, and analogies happen to be one of the most powerful and effective means of communicating what God's infinite and awesome Grace is like.

When we initiate into the Fellowship of Christian Disciples -- the Jesus movement begun so long ago -- we cannot really express the depth and breadth of what that means. Analogies are required. On the one hand, two young children will be standing before the congregation, likely feeling nervous and awkward. Perhaps a little like Hobbits, beginning a journey they cannot imagine at this stage of their lives. But this Fellowship of Christian Disciples goes forward with a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us. We are accompanied by saints we can name and countless others we cannot. We are not alone. And God wins in the end. Thanks be to God.