What Difference does Baptism make?

When a new year begins, when a couple that has been dating for years decides to get married, when a new president assumes power, or when a baby gets baptized, one question that connects all of these life circumstances: what difference does it really make? The hoop-la of New Year’s Eve, the wedding, the inauguration and the baptism pass in an instant: what difference does it make to the individual, the couple, the nation, the child, the family?

Now eight days into a new year, I don’t know about you, but 2006 feels a whole lot like 2005. I get up each morning the same way, there is work to be done, kids to get off to school, bills to pay; the sun is still setting at an outrageous hour of 4:37 in the afternoon. It’s the bleak mid-winter in Southern New England and the warmth of spring is months away. Foreign wars rage on, innocent people are struck down by needless gun violence in our cities, and Washington braces for another corruption scandal. But for many of us, life goes on seemingly unaltered.

When I meet with couples planning their wedding and laying a foundation for their marriage -- and I always distinguish between the wedding and the marriage -- I often pose this question: what do you think will be so different the day after you are married? It is my hope that the couple will discover that the difference comes when they come to see their public profession of vows and the pronouncement of God’s blessing by the priest as a sign that their bonds are more than legal and official, they are spiritual; they become not only next of kin but are joined together in a holy union to pursue a life of mutual joy.

In the months and years ahead, our diocese will begin discussing as a community whether an expression of divine blessing should be given to same sex couples, not in the form of marriage, which in our prayer book is between a man and a woman, but in the blessing of Civil Unions, which are now legal in this state. The Christian church has historically followed cultural and societal norms on matters of marriage, having initially waited some three centuries after the birth of Jesus to even confer a blessing on marriage in churches. We were late to the marriage business. Marriage was first and foremost a social contract and family arrangement, and only over the centuries did it evolve into what we know it as today. Now that Connecticut has acted, my personal hope is that we have a wide conversation on the matter and that we can find a grace-filled way forward so that others can experience in public what they know in their hearts to be true, that it feels different when God blesses our lives and hopes for all the world to see that there is no shame in love, for a God who made us for love cannot be surprised when we seek love. (Paraphrased from the Rev. Canon Bernie Dooly)

Today is the feast of the baptism of Jesus and is one of the four principal times in the year to baptize and welcome new Christians into the faith. Baptism Sundays are special for parents and godparents and the immediate family of the one being baptised. It is a joy-filled event. A new life in faith begins. We share in this by renewing our own baptismal covenant, enabling us to be not just spectators but participants in this sacrament. Today, our gospel reading has as its backdrop the baptism of Jesus. In the reading from Acts, the apostle Paul comes into contact with believers who had only known the baptism of John the Baptist, which was different from that of Jesus.

Let us state and review some baptism essentials. Baptism, mainly a ritual water bath, was not unique to John the Baptist or Jesus. Many world religions have long used water in purity rites: Hindus bathe in holy rivers, Muslims wash themselves before they enter the mosque, and long before Jesus and John, Jewish converts were brought to the water to clean their souls before conversion. So there was nothing unique about baptism. John the Baptist did not invent it. But this is what was different about John’s baptism: he wasn’t making new converts to Judaism. He was attracting already-practicing Jews. Those who came down to the Jordan River were not looking for a new religion; they were seeking a new way of living their lives. Repent. Turn around. Change. What they sought was a better way of living, and that is what John affirmed in the waters of the Jordan.

Many of us use the beginning of a new year to quietly hope for a new kind of life that we’ve been told would make it better: to be more faithful, more prosperous, healthier, slimmer, and more generous and committed to our relationships. Part of the reason that New Year’s resolutions barely make it into February is that they are based almost entirely on individual will power, good intentions and personal resolve. We become like those baptized by John, who were trying to turn their lives around and clean up their acts, with little input from God or help from others.

Now, what was different when Jesus came from Nazareth to Galilee was that he had no reason to change his way of living. Born without sin, he had no need to be cleansed of his past. But in his coming to John, Jesus received what only God could give: the something that is missing is the Holy Spirit. You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Even Jesus it seems welcomed what his proud parent wanted to say for all to hear: he was God’s son, and he was loved. Though Jesus, the Son of God, had no practical need to be baptized, in doing so he gave us an eternal gift: he would go before us in all parts of this life. He would share birth, youth, family life, the waters of baptism, friends, pain and in the end, the experience of death. He rises from death, and so shall we.

In all of this, we see the “why” of baptism and why it matters. We become first and foremost followers of Christ, and what follows are all the other descriptions and categories that the world gives us and we give ourselves: male and female, young and old, black or white, native or foreigner, rich or poor, married or single. Christians cannot be reminded enough of the order and priority of the list. There have been tragic moments when we have forgotten altogether.

In 1994, it is estimated that 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus were killed in Rwanda, an African nation about the size of the state of Maryland. In 1998, President Clinton apologized for the international community’s share of responsibility for the genocide. Before the genocide, in 1990, Rwanda was described as a Christian country, with 90% of the population identifying themselves as Christian. Some Anglicans, both clergy and lay, were implicated in numerous killings, including the Bishop of Kigali. On a recent visit, Duke Divinity School dean L. Gregory Jones toured the countryside and was brought to a small village called Nyamirambo. The host of the tour announced that this village “is the only area of Rwanda that didn’t experience the genocide at all.” Why? The area was predominantly Muslim. The host answered, “their identity as Muslims is so fundamental, so important to them, that they could not envision killing one another. Their commitment to Allah created their fundamental identity, more important than any tribal or national identity.” (cited on p. 45 of Christian Century, December 13, 2005)

This story from Rwanda shows us how, in my view, the War on Terror that we are in the midst of fighting is a war that is tragically misnamed. Our war is not on terror per se, for terror has been present since the beginning of human history, but a battle against those elements of radical Islam that use terror in their desire to destroy the West. As millions of Muslim pilgrims travel in these days to the Hajj in Mecca, the Muslims in the tiny village in Rwanda should remind Christians that our war is not with Islam, which for much of the Islamic world seeks peace and for centuries has tolerated much more religious diversity than has Christianity.

Christians, once baptized into Christ’s life, death and resurrection, must not forget that this new identity is not something that can be put on and taken off like a new suit of clothes. It is not something taken off in wartime and put back on in peacetime. It is not something to neglect when life is going well and then pull out when a crisis or hardship arrives.

I believe we all want a better life. We want peace, prosperity, justice, health, and brighter tomorrows for those who will follow. To get what we all want, what the baptism of Jesus makes clear is that we cannot get there on good intentions alone. We all need God’s help.