Is baptism necessary to enter the Christian life?

Posted: 1st December 2004

To understand the meaning of baptism in all its fullness, it is necessary to see how it was practiced by the early disciples of Christ. During the first Christian Pentecost, those who listened to Peter were “cut to the heart”when they realized that they had been unable to see in Jesus the One sent by God. Full of regret, they asked the apostles, “What should we do?” And Peter replied, “Change your hearts and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you too will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”(Acts 2:37-38). Baptism thus expresses on the one hand the metanoia, the basic change of orientation caused by an encounter with God. And on the other hand the welcome of the Spirit of God which turns human beings into new creatures (see 2 Corinthians 5: 17). It transforms sterile regret into a repentance which is the gateway to a life of communion.

Far from being simply an outward ritual of initiation to mark the fact tha one is joining a new human association. Baptism thus implies the profound transformation of human beings by the Breath of God. It is in some sense a permanent Pentecost that builds up the Church down through the ages. (We should not torget that, in the early Church just as in the Eastern Churches still today, baptism properly speaking is not separated from confirmation.) By opening their hearts to the newness of God, the baptized welcome a seed of Life that will transform them and allow them to live in a new way (see 1 Peter 1: 22-23).

Because this life is essentially a life with others, of necessity it has an external aspect. The transformation of the heart remains essential, but it is expressed by a tangible and visible change in one’s way of life; henceforth one belongs to a community of prayer and sharing with a universal outlook (see Acts 2: 42-47). “Whoever does not love their brothers and sisters, whom they see,” writes Saint John, “cannot love the God they do not see.” (1 John 4: -20). This love is not first of all a feeling, but a life lived with others that makes our fellowship with the invisible God a lived-out reality. Baptism is therefore also a public act by which the community of believers welcomes a new member into its bosom.

God wants the fullness of life for us, and we have access to this life in his Son (see 1 –John 5: 11). Jesus is thus God’s definitive “yes,”to us. Through baptism, Christ links us to his “yes,”which becomes the “yes”that we express to God in return ( see 2 Corinthians 1: 19-20). This yes spoken at our baptism will then be made concrete in all the choices, big and small, that we undertake in order to live out our faith. In this sense it can be said that the whole of Christian life is nothing other than a progressive discovery of all the dimensions of the yes of our baptism. Those who were baptized very young and whose commitment was taken in their name by their loved ones, as well as those who took themselves the step to ask for the sacrament, are equally called to translate the meaning of their baptism into their daily existen-ce, by setting out over and over and over again in the stepes of Christ.

Article Source: Letter from Taizé, October - November 2004 (Page 4)