Today, the Church takes up the threads of life again after the Christmas season. That life resumes, or perhaps more correctly, it begins, with the Baptism of our Lord. The baptism of Jesus has been a much-discussed topic in the history of Christianity. The classic conundrum went as follows: "If Jesus was born free from all sin, why did he require baptism?" And the classic response was: So that he could set a fitting example for all who were destined to follow in his steps. He never really needed baptism himself. He merely submitted to Baptism for the sake of others. But such questions -and indeed such answers- seem to me to miss the whole point of the Baptism of Jesus. By plunging into the river Jordan, Jesus was signalling his complete immersion in human experience. Nothing human will escape him. He wasn't, as it were, going to remain a spectator on the riverbank while human experience flowed by. He would experience life in all its ambiguity, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, good and evil, life and death. 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us' as St. John stressed.

His baptism signalled the beginning of his public life. With his private life at Nazareth now completed, Jesus is initiated into his public ministry. The baptism of Jesus is a very public event, an action witnessed by an entire community. As happened at our own baptisms, his identity is established, his name is called aloud. Baptism is first and foremost the sacrament of identity.

The idea still persists that Baptism is, first and foremost, a washing away of original sin, the restoration of the infant to a condition from which it was presumed to have fallen. I suppose, as an Augustinian, I should put my hands up at this stage and concede that it was St. Augustine who was responsible for the notion of Original Sin as we know it today. In Augustine's day, the practice of infant baptism was replacing the practice of Adult baptism only in the everyday life of the Church. So, to explain and to make acceptable the novel practice of infant baptism, Augustine developed the doctrine of Original Sin. So, contrary to popular belief, the doctrine of original sin was a response to the practice of infant baptism, rather than infant baptism being a response to Original Sin. Taken out of context, this doctrine of Original Sin could be interpreted in a crude and cruel manner. What happened to those who died without baptism? Obviously innocent babies, or those who were still-born? What happened to those? Their lack of baptism apparently barred them from heaven. Yet how could a just God banish forever those who had done no wrong? Out of this unpromising dilemma, Limbo was born. But it is foolish to burden the traditional doctrine of Original Sin with questions it was never designed to bear. Perhaps all the doctrine was saying is that we are all born into a flawed and sinful world. While sin is not the whole story, it is part of the reality we encounter. Original sin also teaches that we, in our time and our turn, contribute in a personal way to the sin of the world. That is about as much as the doctrine of original sin teaches. And baptism teaches that we do not have to confront this evil alone. Because of the loving support of our brothers and sisters, this evil aspect of the human experience will not overwhelm us.

So, historically then, as the emphasis on Original Sin grew, baptism as a sacrament of identity -and a communal act- fell out of focus. Baptism became privatised. In fact the baptism was often administered at the hospital where the infant was born without any reference whatsoever to the local community. Baptism, so rich in symbol for the early Christians, was reduced in time to a mere ritual cleansing. For the early Christians, plunging into the waters of baptism symbolised a plunging into the Christian community for the new member. But, in our own day, the water had been reduced to an instrument of purification. This no longer happens in practice. Nevertheless, legacies of those days still remain. And that legacy often manifests itself in the form of a clash between the parents and the grandparents of the unfortunate infant. The young couple may bring the infant for baptism for the sake of peace.

Today's feast may help us towards an understanding of baptism as an adult sacrament. The infant is baptised into the adult faith of its parents or close relatives. Throughout the entire ceremony, the parents, godparents, relatives and members of the parish community rather than the infant are addressed. In addressing the adults present, the church is trying to reawaken and develop the faith of the parents who present their child for baptism. If the parents or close relatives espouse no faith, the baptism ceremony itself becomes a mere sop to superstition. We are then back to the bad old days of Baptism as a private ritual of purification rather than a public sacrament of the Church. Baptism without faith has no meaning.

Home