Why are Christians
baptized?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls
baptism the basis of the whole Christian
life, the gateway to life in the Spirit.
It is through baptism that we enter into the Word and become members of
the Body of Christ, restored to full relationship with God as original sin is
eradicated. It is a profound
transformation of our very being, made possible because God wants more than
anything to restore us to covenant relationship.
In the time of the
exile in Babylon, the prophet Isaiah gives
comfort to the people of Israel, promising them that slavery will come to
an end, and that their salvation will be a free gift from God, given out of
God’s profound love for them. Their guilt will be expiated. They will be
restored to relationship as a people made new, through the transformative and manifold works of God, who sends forth
his spirit to renew the face of the
earth, as Psalm 104 tells us.
Jesus comes to
make people new in a different way through
baptism. In Luke’s Gospel, John the
Baptist tells the people that one
mightier than John himself is coming,
who will baptize the people with fire
and the Holy Spirit. This baptism
calls for a radical transformation in response to those questions the people
are asking in their hearts; Jesus invites
them to a conscious acceptance of God’s presence in their lives, of God’s grace
within them, and joins them in a celebration of that grace through his own
baptism by John. This is why we are all
baptized into the Body of Christ: to
become a mutually supportive community of faith. Paul’s Letter to Titus, his co-worker in
Crete, reminds Titus that Jesus’ coming is meant to train us to live differently, to live transformed, to live for the
sake of community, of other. How? By acting with kindness and generous love, devoutly
eager to do what is good. That way of life, the essence of Christianity
itself, is meant to inform everything we do, drawing us into the heart of
God. This is the life of the Spirit of which the Catechism speaks, a life built upon
constant renewal and awareness of God’s presence with us here and now.
Finally, we are
baptized into nothing short of hope –
hope for the kingdom here on earth, hope for ongoing relationship with God,
hope for an eternal dwelling, perfect union with the Lord, in heaven. Comfort,
give comfort to my people, God tells Isaiah. Jesus is the ultimate comfort, our shepherd who
brings us a bath of rebirth, the Lord
who is our gateway into life in the
Spirit, who is our salvation.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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