Sacrament, generally speaking, means that the Holy
Spirit conveys & reveals the life of God through ordinary means to give
visible & tangible expression to the unseen life of God. The Catechism of
the Episcopal Church defines it as follows "The sacraments are outward and
visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and
certain means by which we receive that grace" (BCP, 857).
Baptism is one of two of the chief or "dominical" sacraments (meaning Christ has instituted them) of the church. The
other is the sacrament of Holy Eucharist.
(There are seven sacraments total, though the other five are referred to as
"lesser sacraments" by the Anglican tradition).
The Book of Common Prayer says the following about
Baptism in it’s liturgy (299):
“Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into
Christ's Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is
indissoluble.” Here is what the
Catechism says concerning baptism (BCP, 857):
Q. What
is Holy Baptism?
A. Holy
Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us
members of Christ's Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.
Q. What
is the outward and visible sign in Baptism?
A. The
outward and visible sign in Baptism is water, in which the person is baptized
in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Q. What
is the inward and spiritual grace in Baptism?
A. The
inward and spiritual grace in Baptism is union with Christ in his death and
resurrection, birth into God's family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new
life in the Holy Spirit.
Q. What
is required of us at Baptism?
A. It
is required that we renounce Satan, repent of our sins, and accept Jesus as our
Lord and Savior.
Q. Why
then are infants baptized?
A. Infants
are baptized so that they can share citizenship in the Covenant, membership in
Christ, and redemption by God.
Q. How
are the promises for infants made and carried out?
A. Promises
are made for them by their parents and sponsors, who guarantee that the infants
will be brought up within the Church, to know Christ and be able to follow him.
Based on the above, it is clear that the sacrament
of baptism is multi-faceted in meaning.
This is due to the nature of baptism as “sacrament.” Sacrament is always mysterious; it’s
meaning cannot be exhausted. Thus
there is no one exhaustive meaning of baptism—it has many layers. (Most of the trouble we find ourselves in sacramentally is when we attempt to exhaust the meaning of the sacrament. I believe we must recover the Eastern understanding of sacrament as primarily 'holy mystery.)
Here are three ways Lester Ruth (professor of Liturgy at Duke Divinity School) talks about the meaning
of holy baptism:
Instrumental: baptism as a hammer: it does something.
Revelatory: baptism as a window: it reveals something.
Commemorative: baptism as a string around the
finger: it reminds us of
something.
What baptism does:
Through baptism, we are re-born by water and the Spirit. This is also known as baptismal
regeneration. We are forgiven of
sin and receive the gift of the Spirit who begins the life-long process of
healing our sin-diseased nature, renewing us in the image and likeness of
God. We are forgiven, cleansed,
and empowered in baptism because it is a participation in the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. As St.
Paul says in Romans 6, in baptism we die with Christ and rise to newness of
life with Him. When the waters go
over us, we die to old humanity by virtue of Jesus’ death on the cross. When we
come out of the waters, it is a participation in the resurrection, where we are
empowered by the Spirit to live in the new era Jesus’ resurrection has opened
even as we anticipate its consummation.
I like the way St. Augustine of Hippo puts it chapter 52 of his Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, & Love: “baptism in Christ is nothing else than
a similitude of the death of Christ, and that the death of Christ on the cross
is nothing but a similitude of the pardon of sin: so that just as real as is
His death, so real is the remission of our sins; and just as real as is His
resurrection, so real is our justification.”
What baptism reveals:
When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, it gave us a foretaste of our
baptism. In His baptism, the voice
of the Father was heard, and the Spirit of God descended upon the Son of God
like a dove. In baptism, the
triune God is revealed. Not only
is God revealed, but true humanity is revealed in baptism. Jesus went to the Jordan river as the
God-man (fully God and fully human).
As the representative of all humanity, Jesus was baptized by John. When he was baptized, the Spirit
descended and the voice of the Father was heard saying, “This is my son, the
beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
In baptism, we, who were once one with the age of
darkness that is passing away are revealed to be children of God, beloved, ones
with whom the Father is well pleased.
In Christ, the baptized are adopted as children of God. We who were alienated in sin are now friends
of God called to keep covenant and continue, with the whole church, Jesus’
mission to the world.
What baptism commemorates: Baptism commemorates the life, death,
resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ and the pouring out of the Holy
Spirit upon all flesh. While it is
commemorated, those past events of God’s mighty acts are made present to us in
the here-and-now by the power of the Spirit.
Why do we
baptize infants? We believe
that the scope of the atonement is wide and includes all people of all
nations, ethnicities, and genders.
Baptism is the gift of God for all peoples. We cannot earn good standing with God. That has been given to us freely
through the saving activity of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ died for infants, youth, adults,
and senior adults; none are left out of God’s saving embrace.
When an adult is baptized, the church usually prepares
that person through catechism before the baptism takes place. When a child is baptized, the formation
received is in reverse order. The
child is baptized and then, when the child is older, he or she participates in
catechism. As the child grows in
baptism by the church’s faithfulness to the baptismal covenant, the child’s
faith is confirmed. The child who
has demonstrated personal faith now receives the faith of the church more fully
and strives, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for the rest of his or her life
to grow into that rich life of faith in communion with the church.
The church and the family both covenant to raise
the child in such a way that she or he is constantly reminded of her/his
baptism and taught to live into this reality. Baptism is a covenant made
between the individual/family, the church, and God.
If we believed baptism was about us, we could not baptize infants. But,
indeed, we believe baptism is fully about what God has done for us and for our salvation.
N.T. Wright talks about infant baptism to who
argued, “an infant cannot relate to God – why would we baptize them!” Wright reminded his opponents how
beautiful the relationship between a mother and child is while the infant feeds
at the breast. There is real
relationship, nurture, communication, and love happening there…how much more
can that baby’s creator and redeemer relate to him or her?
