Water and Spirit (Part 4 of 4)

Baptism and the Meaning of Matter

Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. (Rm 6:3)

The death and resurrection of Jesus provides a preliminary answer to the question posed in Part 1, in response to the symbol of the water: If destruction and chaos are so intimately linked to the possibility of finite life, can such life ultimately be worthwhile? God responds by elevating part of the material world – the physical body of Christ – to a state of definitive life, from which all potential for destruction has been removed. Not by contradicting or overriding the mystery of water, as modernity attempted to do, but rather through a baptism that places this mystery at the very center of the event.

In Jesus, then, God’s decision to create the world is justified. The universal tendency towards annihilation is overcome, by being transformed into a path of life. But God wants to expand this victory much more broadly, inviting all human beings to participate in Jesus’ own baptism in order to arrive at the resurrection. Jesus publicly and formally embraced his own existential baptism with his ritual baptism in the Jordan river, anticipating the full force of the exhaustion, opposition, hatred and violence that his mission was going to provoke (see CCC 536). In his final instructions to his followers, he entrusted this ritual to them as the rite of initiation for new members of the community of disciples (Mt 28:19). He promised that the one who enters the water with hope of sharing in his own triumph will receive the Spirit of divine adoption that makes this possible (see Jn 3).

Being reborn “by water and the spirit” thus implies taking a definite stance towards the disorder symbolized by the water, and enables us to embrace the finite life that depends on the water for its dynamism. It signifies a renunciation of the “deeds of the flesh” (Rm 8:13), the attempt to construct a fully autonomous order that always has the seeds of death hidden within. This renunciation enables us to appreciate the true goodness of material realities, treasuring and cultivating them while accepting their fragility, and even loving that fragility as an intrinsic part of their beauty. Most dramatically, it creates a new attitude towards the setbacks and sufferings that we personally experience — no matter how extreme — and empowers us to embrace them as occasions for learning to live completely from the breath of God.

Objectively, then, baptism “in the name of Jesus” (Acts 8:12) is the synthesis of God’s plan for creation (cf. CCC 760), by which he pours out his definitive life into billions of new beings without annihilating their individuality. Subjectively, it is also the only satisfactory answer to the crisis of technological civilization. Instead of closing our eyes in denial, putting up a desperate fight, or resigning to despair, we can embrace the full reality of water with confidence and hope. Not the thin hope that some set of regulations or an ethical awakening will eliminate the destructive power of technology, but a hope that accepts this danger, as continuous with the intrinsic fragility of all material order (cf. Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, n. 24-31).

It is clear that many, if not most, of those who have participated in this rite (at least in the modern West) are totally unaware of its meaning, and can easily sink into the same denial, violence or despair as everyone else. But the point is that this solution is not an obscure secret or a speculative theory. It is immediately accessible to almost everyone on earth, and its proven efficacy can be traced back through 2,000 years of extraordinary lives of people who took this act seriously. Prior to any political or technical proposal, the fundamental answer to our crisis is the same given by Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38):

Repent, and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.