January 09, 2005
Baptism of the Lord: Where It All Starts and Ends
If I had to do it over again, I think I might have asked my parents to delay my baptism until my 18th birthday (or somewhere around the age when adulthood blossoms). Obviously, I had no say in that. My parents, like most parents, lost no time (two days after my birth, as a matter of record) in having me baptized because they wanted to have the assurance that if my fragile little life were suddenly to end as quickly as it had begun, at least they and I would know that heaven awaited me. “No limbo for this kid,” they probably said to themselves. I can’t say that I blame them. What parent would want to consign their loving child to the murky confines of that theological construction called limbo when they could as easily be comforted in the thought that baptism would carry me straight to God’s kingdom? So, it was done without delay and without my consultation! Just as well.
Nonetheless, I cannot imagine a compassionate and loving God who would not shed a tear over the death of the least of his creatures, consigning this little human child to an unknown future simply because his parents were not able to get to the church in sufficient time for his baptism. Can God’s love possibly be constrained by the accidents of human life or the lack of parental foresight? It would not seem so to me! No doubt, baptism into Christ is tremendously important for every human person, but not as a means of forestalling the implications of a sudden, unsuspected death and an unpredictable eternity.
The gospel for this feast of Jesus’ baptism relates a privileged event in his life, one over which most of us have no control. Jesus chose to be baptized as a mature, fully-grown adult. He had already been circumcised as a child, of course, but that was a ceremony with a different meaning and purpose entirely.
The baptism of Jesus is a rather odd event, when one thinks about it. In simplest terms, the gospels tell us that one day Jesus, almost purely by accident, happened to be in the neighborhood where John was baptizing in the Jordan River. Not knowing, perhaps, what was involved, but not wanting to be left out of this public penitential ritual either, he presented himself to John for the great washing which seemingly went off without incident. However, as the gospel of Matthew points out, when Jesus came up out of the water, he had this astonishing experience of the Spirit coming down upon him and hearing a voice tell him: “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” In short, this penitential washing ceremony presented itself as the opportunity for Jesus to begin his public, adult life. Until that moment, Jesus was a respectable, unexceptional and unnoticed woodworker in a backwater village called Nazareth. Apparently, there was nothing in his previous life that prepared him for this decision to go on a mission that had no sanction from the temple officials. It was purely his own decision to start a way of life, a career that, in many ways shocked and offended his mother and his neighbors. From the moment he came up out of the water, he was a man-possessed, possessed by the Spirit to go into the world and change it forever, which, in fact, he did. Family life, the carpentry trade, the quiet life in Nazareth was obviously not for him. His vision was broader and deeper than that.
My hunch is that Jesus probably began to think about his future long before the meeting with John at the Jordan, but that day presented him with the opportunity to publicly make a break that he was waiting for, and to set out on his grand venture. This was to be the watershed day in his life, the moment from which he could not turn back. In short, it was not so much what the baptism ceremony did for Jesus, but rather what he did as a result of taking part in it. In other words, vocations have to start somewhere and this is where Jesus’ started.
All this still leaves us with the question, however: What does, or what should our baptism mean in the context of our own life and future. Obviously, most of us were baptized as infants. When does our vocation begin? I would have to say that the spark, the Spirit, the call is instilled in us by God at our baptism, but it quietly hovers or smolders there until we can begin to see or understand what direction our life should be taking. Of course, that may change or develop many times during our life, each decision building on the former one. Most of life’s decisions do not happen once for all. The opportunities occur again and again. They depend upon age, maturity, opportunities which we notice along the way, options which we take advantage of. In other words, vocation is an on-going experience continuing to happen during our entire life.
So I have a hunch that even Jesus began to think about his vocation long before he was baptized. He probably saw all sorts of things happening in the world of his time that he wanted to so something about. The baptism day was simply the moment when he publicly decided to “go for it.”
So, does it ultimately matter whether we are baptized as infants or as adults? I would say that if we understand baptism as God’s on-going call to us, it makes no difference at all. What is of more importance, however, is that we use this opportunity here and now, this once for all event that is offered to us, at whatever age, and do exactly what Jesus did, accept the call, the challenge to go about our work in the world as though this were the most important thing that ever happened to us.
Do you suppose that Jesus began to think about his future when he was a teenager in the woodshop, sanding down doors and window frames? I’d be willing to bet that he did some dreaming, that he probably said to himself: “Some day I’m going to take the opportunity to leave this town and this place and do great things.” Little did he know that the day he accidentally wandered down to the Jordan River and joined that crowd would be the very chance he was looking for. We know what happened after that, of course. The rest of his short life was set in stone.
Now, the question is: How many opportunities have passed us by to do great things for God and the world? Hard to say, of course, but if baptism gets us ready for the rest of our life, chances are there will be lots more. It’s just a matter of recognizing the right time and the right place, like Jesus did. Of course, like Jesus, we have to accept the fact that there is no turning back. Vocations, at whatever point they happen in our lives, are for ever.
The Scriptures:
Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7; Acts 10: 34-38;Matthew 1: 13-17
Posted by Deacon Eric Stoltz at 02:13 PM.
