A Welcome into Jesus' Community Most of us has experienced feeling both welcome and unwelcome in a group. When you have to linger around the edges of a group, hoping to be noticed and subtly trying to be accepted, you probably do not feel welcome, even if the group members do not reject you outright. People do not have to be cruel to be unwelcoming toward others; they just have to fail to take initiative with others. David on his first day at college, faced the unknown with fear and insecurity. He began to feel more comfortable when Tony noticed him and made an effort to help him feel like he belonged.
God Takes the Initiative
Baptism celebrates the good news that God takes the initiative with us human beings. We do not have to do anything to be "noticed" by God. God is always pouring out love and acceptance to us personally, inviting us to share in God's own life of love. God's ever-present, inviting love for us, personally, is another meaning of the term grace.
Through baptism, the Christian community - on Jesus' behalf and thus on God's behalf - takes the initiative in welcoming persons into a life of loving relationships, whether these persons are infants or adults.
A Warm and Welcoming Church
Ideally, local Christian churches would be such warm, welcoming communities that outsiders would sense something remarkably alive about them. People would feel accepted, embraced by the inclusive love of God's open heart. Most people are hungry for that kind of experience, and when they see a spirited community, they feel drawn to it. In fact, the parish and school communities where teenagers and adults are coming into the church in great numbers are characteristically vital, caring communities; they are a sign of God's outstretched arms.
Turnabout and Transformation
Christians believe that an experience of the unconditional welcome extended by God leads to making a turnout in one's life, to reorienting one's life and seeing and acting in new ways. The world looks different to those who experience God's love: They become aware of the bonds that unite them with every other human being and they believe that life asks something more of them than a humdrum, "same old thing" existence.
Christian conversion marks a profound change in the way people perceive themselves, other people and the world. Baptism celebrates this turnabout, not with the expectation that the profound change is once-and-for-all accomplished but with the hope that it has just begun and will be a lifelong process.
From an Old Life of Sin to a New Life in Christ
God created people free to accept or reject love, free to choose good or bad. History's wars, persecutions, discrimination and exploitation give testimony to the fact that people have not always made good choices.
The human tendency to make shortsighted and self-serving choices over grace-filled, wise and generous choices has been termed original sin. The destructive effects of this tendency to choose evil are evident as far back as human beings can recall (as represented by the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden).
In the Rite of Baptism, an adult says no to sin and yes to God's life of grace which is more powerful than any sin or any destruction wreaked by sin over centuries. For children too young to comprehend the choice, their parents and sponsors say yes by renewing their own baptismal promises, with the understanding that they will try to guide the children toward grace and away from sin. This yes implies that the person believes and will try to live out these truths in the world:
- Grace can overcome sin
- Life can triumph over death
- Courage can banish fear
- Freedom to live joyfully in God can overcome slavery to destructive patterns
- A spirit of welcome can banish alienation
- Community can replace isolation
- Sharing can dissolve hoarding
Baptism is not magic. Saying yes to God's life of love will not make sin disappear or melt away the legacy of sin's tragic effects. The conversion to a new way of life, which is symbolized and celebrated in baptism, will go on for a lifetime.
Born Again to a New Identity
To appreciate baptism as an opportunity for rebirth, we need to know something about the life that is left behind and even more about the life that is embraced in this sacrament.
An incident from John's Gospel describes some puzzling remarks that Jesus made about the "rebirth" of baptism:
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born anew." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is spirit." (3:1-6)
Nicodemus at first did not understand what Jesus meant when he said we must be "born anew" or "born again". Nicodemus heard the phrase literally, not symbolically. So what did Jesus actually mean?
Born into Risen life
In speaking of being born anew, Jesus was referring to the inner transformation that comes from people's experience of God's Spirit in their life. Instead of experiencing a new physical birth, people would experience a birth into the Spirit, a rebirth into God's life after passing through a kind of "death". Imaging what rebirth into God's life might mean:
- We notice our parents arguing with each other more and more. Their divorce seems almost certain. Can we survive a family breakup? Rebirth into God's life reminds us that Jesus journeys with us through all the suffering and dying in our life.
- We struggle with decisions about our priorities in life, about how to balance looking out for ourselves with giving ourselves to others. Remembering that we are born anew into God's life colors the way we look at our life decisions. We try to see things as Jesus would.
- We think back on our childhood experiences and recognize that we carry within us many old wounds from disappointments or mistreatment. The rebirth of baptism affirms that Jesus the healer shares our life. In the end, we are never alone.
Baptism, then, plunges a person into the paschal mystery. Through baptism, Christians are united with Jesus in his life, death and Resurrection.
Dying and Rising: An Ongoing Process
Recall again the story of David's entering college. After his first week there, David had a sense of a new identity, but his identity would develop and grow throughout his years in college. Just as David's experience of growth was gradual, the process of rebirth into Christian identity does not happen all at once. Baptism celebrates the mystery of our being continually reborn, every day of our life. We do not "die and rise with Christ" once but over a lifetime of many "deaths and resurrections", of losses followed by new growth, of failures followed by deeper understandings and victories of the spirit. Our rebirth is ongoing; we are never finished being born again until we reach our eternal destiny of union with God.
Perhaps you have heard the phrase "born again Christian" and wondered what it really means. Some people may ask you pointedly, "Have you been born again?" and they may even want to know exactly when in your life you were born again. When these Christians use the phrase "born again", they are referring to a one-time-only, supposedly life-changing event in which a person accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is obvious that this notion differs significantly from the Catholic understanding of rebirth. Baptism itself celebrates a process of dying and rising to new life within a community, a process that happens over and over again in a person's lifetime.
Sharing in the Mission of Jesus
In the opening story, college newcomer David finds a new sense of purpose in his life during his orientation. He may also at times wonder about his purpose beyond college.
A Life Purpose
Many of us ask ourselves big questions like these:
- What am I going to do with my life?
- What am I here for?
- What's my life all about, anyway?
When we ask ourselves these questions, we are considering our basic purpose in life.
Jesus' priority: The Reign of God
With initiation into God's life, the Christian shares in the larger life purpose that Jesus calls his followers to. For instance, Christian initiation challenges Christians to look at war with a different attitude, to show concern for people who are different or distant from themselves and to think critically about the values that are popular in a culture.
In Jesus' set of priorities, life is not simply about taking care of our own needs and wants and those of our family. Jesus' life purpose and therefore his followers' life purpose, is to usher in the reign of God's justice and peace in the world. The Christian's personal life goals are still important - like getting an education, finding meaningful work, and raising a family. But these goals become just part of the larger life purpose - carrying on Jesus' mission, a task Jesus entrusted to his church. In identifying with Jesus' life purpose, Christians will no doubt encounter suffering, but they will also experience a deeper, more-lasting happiness than the kind that can be attained through success or money.
Conversion and rebirth, as described earlier, do not happen suddenly and completely. Likewise, a person's commitment to Jesus' life purpose does not happen instantaneously with baptism, even for adult converts. That commitment takes a lifetime of growing into it. Baptism - and indeed, the whole process of initiation - celebrates that the commitment has begun.