About Baptism

If there was one area you would think Christians would be in much agreement on, it would be baptism. After all, it is a joyous occasion. There are the white gowns, the words that bespeak hope of a new life, the water, symbol of life... and the innocence of the newly beloved of God, the catechumens truly becoming something new in this wonderful initiation into new life.

Although we Catholics can be closed up (perhaps even too closed up) in how we will interact sacramentally with other Christians, one way in which we do throw open the doors is baptism. For us, any baptism that is in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a baptism. The baptism of a Baptist or Presbyterian minister is as real and powerful as one done by the Pope himself. I guess we see baptism as the truly unifying thing that all Christians do, and indeed submitting to baptism was in many ways the first important step in Jesus' own ministry.

But as with all things Christian, we can't always seem to agree. Some Christians have a more restrictive formula of what makes a baptism valid. Mormons rebaptize just about everyone. Baptists insist in full immersion. The Orthodox are often skeptical that any baptism undertaken by the churches of the west is valid, and often insist on re-baptism.

Although it is often suggested that the Bible never portrays anything but immersion baptisms, in truth, the New Testament does not go into much detail about how baptism should take place at all. All we do have for certain is the baptismal formula from Matthew 28:19, "baptizing... in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit." Where water is concerned, the New Testament does not give only a single mode. The baptism of Acts 16 clearly does not happen at the river, since it appears to obviously be in the context of treating the wounded Christians who have just been let out of jail in a bath.

Also, St. Peter clearly warns against "water legalism" earlier in Acts 10, when he tells of the holy-spirit filled catechumens, "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the holy Spirit even as we have?"

Then there's the scene that you'd have noticed in "The Gospel According to Matthew", "The Passion of the Christ", "the Gospel of John" or any Jesus film: water left the side of Jesus, the very symbol of the "life giving water" Jesus spoke of at Sychar. The moment baptism took on its efficacy was when the water and the blood emerged from his side.

Now clearly this didn't happen in amounts that would have "immersed" anyone. And yet this was the very moment that true baptism into eternal life was born. So how can we say that immersion was necessary when this first baptism of the new life itself probably produced no more than a trickle or stream?

Insistence on immersion puts the emphasis on the rite or sacrament, and not on the saving power of Christ. It isn't the amount of water that saves - it is the grace and truth of Jesus, given in baptism, that saves.

Its about Jesus. Not the abundance of H20.