Beginnings

Waters of Creation

The mystery of life first began on earth long ago in what scientists call "deep time." Nearly three billion years ago, cellular life began in shallow oceans. Two billion years later life had progressed into multicelled animals visible to the naked eye. Eventually life forms developed that could survive on land. Life originated from the water; all life continues to need water to survive.

People have long recognized the necessity of water in their stories of the beginnings of life. As Christians we share the creation story told by the Hebrews, in which God breathed over the face of the waters to call forth creation. God gathered the waters and dry land appeared. From the waters, God called swarms of living creatures into being.

Water continued to play a central part in new beginnings. God led the Hebrews to liberation through the waters of the Red Sea, out of Egypt and slavery into a new life as God's chosen people. God provided water for their journey in the desert wilderness toward the land God had promised. Through the River Jordan, God's people crossed into that Promised Land of Canaan. We read these stories in the Jewish scriptures (also called the Old Testament).

Waters of Jesus's Baptism

The Gospels of the Christian scriptures (also called the New Testament) tell the watery beginning of Jesus's ministry in Palestine. In the Gospel of Luke, at Jesus's baptism in the Jordan River, the heavens parted, the Spirit came down on Jesus, and God said, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased" (3:23). Standing in the ripples on the river, Jesus heard God calling him, "my Son." After his baptism, Jesus was led into the desert and tempted to deny God's call to him. But Jesus rejected temptation and returned to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, where he claimed his calling: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring good news to the poor ... to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free ..." (Luke 4:18). Jesus said, "Yes, I am your Son." Consider the waters of your own baptism, or baptisms you have witnessed, where God claims you as God's own ("You are. ..."). Consider the ripples on the water that speak of joy and wonder, struggle, transformation. Hear baptism as a "Yes, I am." This is the heart of Christian moral theology that Bill speaks about in the interlude that precedes this chapter — Be.

Waters of Birth and Rebirth

Each of us was conceived in a place rich in water. For nine months we floated in a sea of water inside our mother's womb — first as one cell, then two, then four, then eight. Soon we developed organs and limbs. Finally, one day, we broke through those waters and into the world.

On the day of baptism, the newly baptized are born yet again, this time into the Body of Christ, the Church. Again the baptized burst forth from water as a new person. Even if you have not been baptized or do not remember your own baptism, you've likely seen other people being baptized.

On the day of baptism, a priest pours water over the head of the one to be baptized, or completely plunges her into a pool of water. Now, she doesn't reenter her mother's womb, as a man named Nicodemus wondered when he heard Jesus talking about being born again (John 3:1–10). But the newly baptized are born again. You can think of the baptismal font, the basin that holds the waters of baptism, as a womb from which a person is born again. The Holy Spirit moves in those baptismal waters, making the person new and bestowing spiritual gifts for life and ministry in the world.

The waters of baptism are powerful. They are the same waters of creation over which God breathed and called forth life. They are the same waters of freedom through which God led the Hebrews out of a life of slavery in Egypt, and the waters of promise through which they walked into new life. They are the same waters in which Jesus was baptized and the same living water that Jesus offered the Samaritan woman at the well. In these powerful and living waters the baptized are reborn. By those waters they share in the waters of creation, liberation, promise, and new life in Christ. In the waters of baptism they are bathed in the living water where they will never thirst again.

Today's baptisms, unlike the baptisms in the muddy Jordan River, can be overly sentimental — babies dressed in white, receptions with cake and ice cream. Baptisms truly are a cause for celebration, but in the festivities we may not notice the profound conversion happening before our very eyes. Looking at early Christian baptismal rituals might help us better recognize baptism as the dramatic death to an old self and turn to a new life it truly is.

Baptism in the Early Church

For early Christians, being baptized demanded radical changes in life, changes that could jeopardize your very life. Becoming a Christian meant breaking Roman laws that required sacrifices to the Roman gods, an infraction that could result in being arrested, jailed, tortured, and even put to death. You'd lose friends and maybe your family. Some newly baptized Christians, such as those in the army, had to give up their jobs. Becoming a Christian in the early centuries after Jesus died literally meant turning toward a new way of living.

While baptismal practices varied among early Christian communities, one pattern described in fourth century documents is that catechumens, people who are studying about the Christian faith with the intention of becoming candidates for baptism, began the ritual of baptism facing west, the direction of the setting sun and the symbolic direction of darkness and evil. Standing barefooted on a rough garment woven from goat's hair (called a "hair shirt") to indicate that they desired to die to their life of sin, they renounced Satan and the works of evil three times, professing their desire to give up — virtually die to — their old way of life.

The catechumens then turned to the east, the direction of the rising of the sun and the symbolic place of new life, as they professed their faith in Christ three times. Then they stepped into a pool of water, submersing their entire bodies. This pool of water symbolized a tomb in which their old selves died and their sins were washed away. It also represented a mother's womb, out of which a new person was born. Finally, stepping out of the...