Baptism

In the early Church the sacraments we now call Baptism and Confirmation were one and the same thing. At a moment in which a person found a whole new world opening up to them, as they accepted Jesus as Lord of their life, they would be taken down to the river and plunged in. As they began to drown, their previous life would flash before them and they would rise up out of the water with that previous life washed away and a new life open before them.

There are few churches which will allow a repeat of baptism. If you have given your life to Christ, you do not have to keep making that decision. In traditions, such as my own, we baptise children, because they too are welcome and included in God’s saving love, but we do so on the basis that they will be encouraged, one day, to come back and confirm those baptismal promises for themselves. The point is that, included in God’s embrace, they still need to make their own decision to give their lives to Christ.

Yet there is a connection between what once happened to us, our baptism, and how we live this day. It is similar to a marriage. Those of us who are fortunate to have had long and happy marriages, will remember the day on which we got married. We cannot keep repeating that day. And yet a marriage is something that has to be built, day-by-day and year-by-year, if it is to have any meaning.

It has to be a dynamic and living relationship, if it is to remain a relationship at all. And if we are fortunate, it will be a relationship which grows and deepens and matures over the years. In a sense, it is a journey of discovery – a shared adventure.

I suggest that baptism is the same. Once we were baptised, but each day we need to live out what it means to give ourselves to Christ. In all the busyness of the present moment, in what ways will we live for Christ and so grow in his love?