Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
(Romans 6:3-4)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus
As the Church all over the world reflect the glow perceived during the Theophany of our Lord Jesus Christ, when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan and the Triune nature of God was revealed, and as we all prepare for the Nineveh Fast of 3 days, let us reflect on what baptism means, what it is to be truly human. In Part 1, to be brief, we tried to understand that baptism is one of the most essential signs of being a Christian. We also learnt that from early Christian years, baptism has been related to the Crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and also, how it was related to the creation history in Genesis. And through it all, we understood that baptism is a means to overcome the chaos of this life, leading to rebirth as a son or daughter of God, just as Jesus is a son.
We stopped at a point where the ancient Church brought together powerful symbols towards baptism. Where water symbolizes rebirth: rebirth as a son or daughter of God, as Jesus himself is a son. So when the Church reflected on what baptism means, it came to view it as a kind of restoration of what it is truly to be a human. To be baptized is to recover the humanity that God first intended.
WHAT DID GOD INTEND?
He intended that human beings should grow into such love for Him and such confidence in Him that they could rightly be called God’s sons and daughters. We human beings, throughout the ages, have let go of that identity, abandoned it, forgotten it and corrupted it and stamped it under our very feet. By forgetting and stamping on the identity that God intended, man has created chaos into the created order and also within themselves, to the point of destruction, enmity and hatred.
But when Jesus arrives on the scene He restores humanity to where it should be. But that in itself means that Jesus, as He restores humanity ‘from within’, has to come down into the chaos of the human world. Jesus has to come down fully to our level, to where things are shapeless and meaningless, in a state of vulnerability and unprotectedness, if real humanity is to come to birth.
This suggests that the new humanity that is created around Jesus is not a humanity that we are familiar with, that is a humanity that is successful and is in control of things, but a humanity that can reach out its hand from the depths of chaos, to be touched by the hand of God. And that means that if we ask the question ‘Where might you expect to find the baptized?’ one possible answer is, ‘In the neighborhood of chaos’. It means you might expect to find Christian people near to those places where humanity is most at risk, where humanity is most disordered, disfigured and needy. Christians will be found in the neighborhood of Jesus – but Jesus is found in the neighborhood of human confusion and suffering, defenselessly alongside those in need. If baptized is being led to where Jesus is, then being baptized is being led towards the chaos and the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny.
We might also add that we may also expect the baptized Christian to be somewhere near, somewhere in touch with, the chaos in his or her own life – because we all of us live not just with a chaos outside ourselves but with a quite a lot of inhumanity and muddle inside us. A baptized Christian ought to be somebody who is not afraid of looking with honesty at that chaos inside, as well as being where humanity is at risk, outside.
So baptism means being with Jesus ‘in the depths’: the depths of human need, including the depths of our own selves in their need – but also in the depths of God’s love; in the depths where the Spirit is re-creating and refreshing human life as God meant it to be.
As we stop here for today, let is reflect in what it means to be a baptized Christian. In the Orthodox tradition, the days before trimphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and Good Friday is marked by events where Jesus heals a lot of people around Him. He is also found at a graveside resurrecting His friend Lazarus. Through my walk in this life trying to live as a Christian, this is a question that kept me thinking, where am I in this fallen humanity and what is my role. As we look towards the Ascension and the Pentecost, where do we want to be found? To be in the midst of success or in the midst of human chaos?
Your brother in Christ Jesus
Jobin George
