Baptism of Jesus
During the week, a Catholic body in the UK, The Centre for Pastoral Practice, published the findings of some recent research. They compared Catholic practice as it existed in the UK in 1950 and practice as it exists today. They had seven times as many Catholic baptisms in 2006 than they had in 1950. And this despite the fact that Church practice had fallen by two thirds in that same time. Many are suggesting that the high quality of Catholic education vis a vis the state system may provide the answer. Pupils need baptism certificate to get into Catholic schools. As the Protestant Henry IV said when he converted to Catholicism under duress: 'Paris is worth a Mass'. He would have lost the support of the Paris mob had he not converted. Perhaps in the same way, Johnny citizen in the UK is reaching the conclusion that a good education is worth a baptism! The sacrament of baptism was always a contentious issue in the life of the Church. The debate revolved generally around three controversial topics: 'Why was Jesus baptised?' And 'Why are infants baptised?' "Why do we baptise children from families with no discernible faith and no record of religious practice?" Are we undermining the whole Christian life with this slip-shod attitude?
To get back to the first question: 'Why was Jesus baptised?' After all, the Church teaches that Jesus was born without sin. The Church teaches that baptism is for the removal of Original Sin. How do you square that circle? And it is more difficult still to accept that a newborn baby has a mortal stain on its soul. Now these debates would have been harmless enough had they not influenced radically some Christian practices. Not until St. Augustine in the 5th century was the doctrine of Original Sin developed. So it doesn't make sense to speak of the baptism of Jesus as a removal of original sin from his soul. As we know from the scriptures and early Church documents, adult Baptism by immersion was the norm in the early Church. And it was also the norm to administer baptism just once a year, as part of the Easter Vigil. The adult neophytes, as they were called, began the final stages of their preparations for the sacrament on Ash Wednesday. The progressed through seven stages during the seven weeks of Lent. They then walked naked into the baptismal bath during the Vigil and emerged to be wrapped by their sponsor in a white shawl. Of course that white shawl is retained as a central symbol in the baptism ceremony up to this day. By the time of Augustine, adults and infants seem to have been baptised in equal measure. In fact many scholars believe that Augustine devised the doctrine of original sin to justify the practice of infant baptism. In time it worked: baptism came to be regarded as a ritual removal of original sin.
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. He wasn't, as it were, going to remain a spectator on the river bank while human experience flowed by. He would experience life in all its ambiguity, good and evil.
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.
Up to the reforms of Vatican II, baptism as you know was for all intents and purposes a private sacrament, indeed often performed in the hospital The primary concern was to wash away original sin from the soul of this little baby. Baptism was no longer seen as a saving entry to a redeeming community but a purification from original sin.
This no longer happens in practice. In fact as you know in this Church, most of our baptisms take place during the parish Sunday mass. This represents a return to the original understand of the sacrament: an immersion of a new member into the Christian community in the presence of the Christian community. During the year a great debate revolved around the existence of Limbo. Culturally and spiritually, there is still a great legacy of anxiety about the non-baptism of infants. This anxiety normally attaches itself to believing grandparents. And the Church must not look down its nose at that anxiety since it was the church that implanted that anxiety there in the first place.
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? However, in Ireland still, an infant is being baptised into a believing community, a community that consists primarily of an extended believing family. Of course infant baptism still makes eminent sense in this context.