A few unfinished thoughts on Baptism
"Are
you able to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" Jesus
asked the disciples who thought they deserved a place of honor in the kingdom. (Mark.
10:35-45)
"O
course" they answered confidently. Did they think of the day Jesus went to
be baptized by John in the Jordan? Many people were baptized by John. Baptism
itself was not something totally new. Many pagan mystic groups had ritual washings
of initiation. The Jews had ritual washings too. The Essenes, a Jewish religious
group who lived in strict communities, expecting the coming of Gods kingdom, took
regular ritual baths to be cleansed. They took the ritual cleansing every Jew
learned about from the laws of Moses to new extremes. But John's baptism was
somewhat different. Instead of repeated baths which the individual would take
himself, John's baptism seems to be a unique event, a radical turnaround. His
custom of washing people was so extraordinary, that he became known as the
Baptizer. It was not so much his act of washing someone, but the fact that he
did this, not to gentiles who were converting to Judaism, but to Jews. And in
the Jordan. This prophet, reminded them so much of Elijah, the prophet who
turned Israel back to God in a time of growing idolatry. Here John was,
baptizing in the Jordan, reminding them of Joshua bringing the Israelites into
the promised land. All the signs were there that the kingdom of God was near.
People repented in preparation for this coming kingdom. Was this the baptism
Jesus was talking about? He too went to John to be baptized. What a remarkable
event that was! What was such a perfect person doing at a baptism for
repentance? And after that, why did he go into the wilderness? For forty days!
Suffering hunger and temptation. It sounded so much like the story of Israel,
God's son, called from Egypt, who went through the waters of the sea and
suffered hunger and temptation in the desert for forty years.
Only later
did the disciples realize the true meaning of these words. The baptism Jesus
referred to was his death. Consequently the baptism they learned from John
received a new meaning. What once was an act of cleansing, now became
associated with something Jews considered unclean - a grave. What once was seen
as an act of obedience, repentance from the side of man, now became a testimony
of rebirth, new life. In this new life the hierarchies of the world was overturned.
For as many of them as have been baptized, have put on Christ, like a new coat
which covered the old identities which defined their place in the kingdom of
this world. They were no longer Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, or even male or
female. A new creation, that is what they were. And baptism was a sign of this
- out of death came life. A new covenant.
Unfortunately,
even in a new covenant, old habits did not always disappear. The fights about
who was best and who deserved the places of honor in God's kingdom still
continued. In the quests of perfection baptism became such a point of no-return
that many people postponed it till shortly before their death, afraid that they
would sin again after their baptism. For such sins there was no forgiveness
some said. In other circles, baptism became a means of bestowing grace. Once
the thought that unbaptized souls were lost, became popular, the baptism of
children in a society with a high infant mortality rate, became customary. In
their radical break with the established church, the Anabaptists emphasized the
baptism of adults by immersion. Even though they might have had a literal
reading of the Bible verses on their side, the radicalism of some Anabaptist
groups proved that claiming that right did not automatically make you a true
follower of Christ. One of these groups were so convinced of their recovery of
'true baptism' and the 'right way' of reading the Bible, that they converged in
the city of Münster, expecting the kingdom of God to appear with them having a
place of honor in it. The corruption of their leaders like John of Leiden who
took 17 wives, publically killing one of them, illustrated that baptism, even
that of adults who profess faith, in
itself is no remedy against evil.
In that
sense, the baptism of adult believers have proved no more effective than that
of infants. It guarantees nothing. And it can be just such a ritual, done
without any sense of new life in Christ, of new covenant.
"Biblical" Baptism
To be
honest, I think that the idea of recovering one 'true' or 'right' baptism from
the scriptures, is optimistic. There is a clear move in meaning from the
baptism of John to the baptism of Christ and a clear historical move that can
be traced even within the Bible itself. How we read those verses have been
colored by centuries of development and debate. Should we just ignore these? I fear
we are reading too much of our individualism, a fairly recent development into
these scriptures, ignoring the way whole households accepted faith and baptism.
One of the problems with modern evangelicals is their total lack of awareness
of church history. The idea that we can ignore two thousand years is a fallacy.
To do so, would be ignoring the developments and debates that colors our
reading of the Bible. To do so would disregard Gods work through history.
It bothers
me that in the debate about baptism, I often hear scriptures being quoted
superficially. I miss a deeper reflection of what baptism is all about. Perhaps
this is also because of a failure to read of the verses in their whole context,
historically and literally. I too have
quoted those passages, fiercely debating for the baptism of believers,
especially after I just got baptized at the age of fourteen. I was quite zealous
for the kingdom of God, but perhaps like James and John, a bit ignorant of the
fact that God's kingdom may be bigger than I imagined. I was a bit like those people
Paul described in his letter to the Corinthians. Baptism played a role in their
factionalism too (1 Cor. 1:10ff). The problem with the proof-texting approach
common among modern evangelicals is that it quotes some verses that prove our
point and neglect those that may diminish the authority we claim. Perhaps we also limit our expectations of God.
