Baptism comes from a Greek word meaning to plunge, and early baptisms were plunges into the water. Christians were neither the first nor only group to use a rite of baptism. The Jews practiced ritual baths for purification and for the initiation of converts. John enforced a baptism to mark a turning to and commitment to God. Among the Gentiles, various cults celebrated a rite of baptism as part of the ceremonies of initiation. The early Christians took this ritual bath, this ritual plunge into the depths, and made it the sign, the symbol, the sacrament of God’s election, redemption, justification, and sanctification. The church offers up the waters, the Spirit of the Lord hovers over them, the creative Word makes them the sacrament of regeneration.
The rites of baptism given in our prayer book represent the final rites of a journey. As the church moved from gradually enfolding adult converts to rather automatically baptizing the infant offspring of believers, the long journey of conversion, of seeking for God, hearing God, coming to know and respond in love to God was lost. In order to illuminate the rites we use today, allow me to look back in time and place to uncover the ancient steps to the baptistry.
The journey of conversion, the road to new life and the accompanying rites are usually divided into three stages: Catechumenate, Election, Baptism. These stages are preceded by the state of being a Seeker or an Inquisitor, a state of looking for meaning and asking questions of the church.
Once a Seeker decides the church has the answer or is the answer, the Seeker becomes a Catechumen. The name comes from a Greek word meaning to make hear or to teach. The catechumen is a student, a student of life, life in Christ. This is not primarily a time for the catechism; this is a time to teach the senses, the mind, and the will what it is to belong to Christ. The duration of the catechumenate is technically indefinite, but usually lasts one to three years. The stage customarily begins with a rite of entry celebrated at the door of the church. All evil is renounced. The evil that clings to the heart and soul is ritually exorcised. (Sometimes the evil is addressed directly and ordered to depart [major exorcism], sometimes God is invoked to safeguard against all evil [minor exorcism].) In some places the head, hands, feet, heart, ears, eyes, nose, and/or mouth are signed with the cross in token that this person and all his/her faculties now are reserved for Christ. In some places the person here takes a new name as a token of a new life begun. When these rites are ended, the catechumen is brought into the church proper, for now, being reserved for Christ, the catechumen belongs to the church as well. Now begins a journey of hearing God’s Word and living among God’s people. Scripture, prayer, and charity become the catechumen’s life. The burden of the journey is periodically fortified with exorcisms, anointings, blessings, and public prayers. In the ancient church the catechumens attended only the scripture liturgies (Ante-communion, Proclamation of the Word, Liturgy of the Word). Traces of this practice continue in most churches into the present. Our Holy Communion is divided into word and sacrament. In the Roman Church (until 1968) the division was most clearly stated, the Mass being given in two parts: The Mass of the Catechumens (Word), and Mass of the Faithful (Eucharist).
If the above process seems long and drawn out, think in terms of dating a prospective spouse. Few can make a life-time commitment in the twinkling of an eye. Most need time to come to know the other, time to come to truly see the other, time to pass by fascination and come to adoration. If the spouse is Love Itself, what caution ought to be observed? Yet, commitment not caution is the goal of faith. With due discernment that catechumen and church have the heart and mind of Christ in this matter, the rites of entry to the next stage are celebrated. The stage and rite are called Election. Now is the time for purification and illumination, the time for intense solemn prayer, fasting, meditation, and mortification. The ritual customarily involves the inscribing of the elect’s name in a ritual book, The Book of Life. In some places it is in this ritual of enrolment that a new name may be taken. In some places during this stage the creed and the gospels are ritually presented. In some places during this stage, in accord with Mark 7:34, the Ephphatha (a ritual opening of the ears to truly hear, and a ritual loosening of the tongue to truly speak) is celebrated. This stage continues the steady diet of exorcisms, anointings, blessings, and public prayers. The duration of Election is unlimited, but traditionally coincides with the season of Lent and culminates with the celebration of baptism on Easter morning.
With your indulgence, I shall try to revision the ancient rites. On Easter Eve the faithful gather in the great cathedral church for the night long vigil service. In the middle of the night, the elect, who have been secluded in prayer and fasting during Holy Week, are brought to stand outside the baptistry building just beyond the cathedral. They are left to stand hungry, cold, tired. The deacons and other ministers who have guided them to this moment give them their final instructions. Turn to the west, to the darkest part of the fading night sky, renounce evil, denounce all of Satan and sin. That being done, they are told to remove their clothes, everything of the old life must be cast off. They are instructed to turn to the east, to the dawning light, confess Christ is Lord. Here, in ritual, in this act, Adam and Eve again stand naked before God, now not hiding in shame and lies, but standing in surrender and the hope of forgiveness. The doors of the baptistry now open into the night. Incense and the smell of fragrant oils pour out on the mist arising from the pool of warm water, candle light fills the air. One by one the elect are lead into the pool, one by one they are submerged “In the Name of the Father … the Son … the Holy Spirit”. Wet, warmed, dazzled, moved to the depths, one by one the baptized emerge. They are robed in white. They are lead into the church. The whole body cheers them on with song until they reach the bishop standing at the chancel steps. The bishop greets them with a kiss and anoints them with holy chrism. Now no longer reserved for Christ, now filled with Christ, now God’s own, beloved and anointed, now may they, now do they, together approach the Holy Table and partake of the Feast of Thanks, now is theirs the scripture that says: “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, unto him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Such fullness of ritual is deprived us today. It is not beyond our legal reach, merely beyond our “modern sensibilities”. In many places there are movements to restore some semblance of the above progress from Seeker to Baptized, to once again more richly robe our ritual celebrations of the long process of conversion. Rome has set out an extensive body of new rites, and many other churches are also fostering a renewal of this ancient heritage.
In most places the bare outline of ancient practice still persists. Surrounded by the congregants they are about to join with as full members, the candidates are presented and examined, asked to renounce Satan and evil, to confess Christ as Lord, to assent to the creed, the traditions, the practice of the Church. These given, water is blessed and imparted either by immersion or by affusion. I am sorry to say that in most situations we approach these rituals with more of a business attitude than a sacramental one. We seem to be more about processing than ritually illuminating and celebrating the sacred. In some places, the newly baptized are presented a white garment, anointed with Holy Chrism, presented with a light symbolic of the shattering light of Christ, yet again, these three elements taken out of their ancient context carry little ritual impact in the way they are usually handled today. Pity, we have such treasures to share, so few who have any idea how even to open the box.
As an addendum, I note that some argue that the post-baptismal episcopal kiss and anointing are the root of Confirmation. In the ancient church, these acts publicly confirmed the baptismal covenant that had been celebrated in the baptistry. When baptism was no longer reserved to Easter (and later, Pentecost and Epiphany), when adult baptism was no longer the norm, when bishops were no longer present at baptisms, then this act of confirmation was lost to the rites of baptism in the western churches and came to be seen as a rite in itself.