Baptism
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You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own forever. -from the BCP service of Holy Baptism
I often complain that RSVP-ing is a lost art. Few people RSVP anymore at all, and even fewer RSVP by the deadline. It’s just that in our current culture, we don’t want to be beholden to anyone or anything, and promising to show up for something is tough. I mean, what if your plans change? Or what if something more important comes up - or something much better? It’s just not in our DNA to make commitments. We want to leave things open, so that we have independent freedom right up until the last minute. There are a lot of benefits to having this kind of individual freedom. And, then again, we can look at our country as it is these days and plainly see the costs of it.
So in a culture like ours, baptism is deeply, profoundly, unbelievably counter-cultural. Once you’re in, you’re in forever. There’s no changing it. In fact, on page 298 of the BCP, in the section about the service of Holy Baptism, it states: “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.” Indissoluble! Who even uses such a word anymore?
But who doesn’t love a baptism service, right? Especially baptisms of adorable babies in their beautiful white clothes? We’ve contained this sacrament in our earthly buildings with our familiar ceremonies, so that we can think of them more as family celebration than an initiation into a life-long, forever, indissoluable commitment. We’ve tamed baptisms enough to forget that they represent something timeless, cosmic and astounding. Entering into the body of Christ is not just like choosing a year’s subscription to the NY Times, something you can cancel next year if you decide you don’t really need it anymore. No, it’s saying yes for EVER. Yes to a life long - no, wait - a way BEYOND this life-long relationship with the most powerful force in the entire universe.
According to the BCP’s catechism, sacraments are the “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.” In other words, the sacraments show us, right here in this world, what cannot be seen or understood in the universe, and they give to us something we cannot fathom, but need more than anything - a living relationship with the awesome, unknowable Creator of all things through the incarnated Christ.
Would you RSVP for that? Would you say yes to claiming a boundless, infinite and enormous identity - bigger than any of us could even dream of being able to live into let alone uphold. It’s a good thing that in baptism it is God claiming US and not the other way around. Come say yes again this Sunday.
