A friend (and former student) has been in the process of standing for examination of his fitness for ordination and "probationary membership" as an elder in The United Methodist Church. We sat and talked Sunday night as he prepared to meet with his examiners, and most of our conversation was dominated by talk about sacramental theology -- especially infant baptism.
Truth be told, it's always been a close run thing what I've thought about infant baptism. For nearly the longest time, I've had problems affirming the baptism of babies with any gusto. It's always been through guarded and grated teeth.
Episcopalians baptize infants, of course. But I've hardly been thoroughly convinced. As obedience to my church and bishop, I've baptized plenty of small ones. But if I'm honest with the world and myself, that's sometimes been a hard thing to do.
Biblically, it's notoriously difficult to justify infant baptism. There are a few brief references to the baptism of "households" in the book of Acts, which may have included infants; in any case, scholars are agreed that believer's baptism was undoubtedly the norm in the early church for over a hundred years. Well into the second century, the church catholic was cautious about baptizing babies.
And, of course, there's the shambles that certain paedobaptist traditions have historically made. Like "baptisms on request", done because it's what you do (or what your parents want you to do), understood as a "naming ceremony" or "spiritual inoculation", the rite privatized and performed on a Sunday afternoon as a "family occasion", and for some just the starter before the main course, "wetting the baby's head" in the pub -- and the parents and child will never be seen in church again.
If we church leaders were honest, we've not done ourselves any favors in regard to infant baptism, either. Our language sometimes betrays ambivalence and uncertainty. We'll call it a "christening" instead of a "baptism". Or we sentimentalize the sacrament -- preoccupied as we are with how cute the baby looks, what she is wearing, and how good or how naughty she is? What would you say to someone who asked you to explain the meaning and purpose of baptism? "I'm not quite sure, but I know a man who does" -- and give them the minister's phone number? Like I have a much better handle on what's going on?!?
Still -- despite all the arguments against it -- I support infant baptism every time I'm asked to baptize. Why? It all comes down to grace -- God's initiative to accept us, even before we accept God or know to accept God. In other words, I baptize babies because of Jesus.
God's grace in Jesus triumphs over human indiscipline, ingratitude, indifference -- and a whole lot worse.
Here's the deal. God is love -- the eternal love of Father, Son, and Spirit -- a dynamic, dancing, daring love that bubbles up and overflows -- God just cannot contain himself -- and cascades out in creation. The shorthand for that love is Trinity. In his love God creates a cosmos, seeds it with galaxies, illuminates it with stars, sprinkles it with planets, and populates one of them with wonderful creatures and, eventually, human beings. So far, so good. But what do we do? We screw up, that's what we do; from little goofs to major mayhem, we screw up. As far back as the historical and archaeological record take us, we screw up. And we know this -- this human brokenness -- deep inside and from personal experience, we know that what we will and what we do, me as I am and me as I should be, they are never consistently aligned.
We don't only screw up, of course. We get some things right. We make love, write poetry, play music, cure diseases, and create the game of baseball. But we also invent Marmite, Twitter, call centers, and The Kardashians. And from the trivialization of everyday life we work our way up to the tragic and the terrible. We practice the darks arts of mendacity, fear, hatred, and war, and with a toxic combination of insatiable consumption and technological genius, we are now painting ourselves into the corner of ecological meltdown. We take this beautiful blue planet, colonize it, plunder it, turn it into a killing field, and prepare it for extinction.
That's what we call sin, and it's driven by the engine called death. Our fear of death, even our embrace of death, motivates so much destruction. The power of death's hold becomes the motivating factor for so much sin.
And, in my particular case, it's the mystery of sin, death and suffering that becomes the lament of theology. And its response? Baptizing infants!
God's grace speaks of life, not death. God hates death, hates it. And because God loves us, loves us unconditionally -- I mean really unconditionally, so that whatever we do cannot make God love us any more or love us any less (can whatever your child does make you love him/her any more or any less?) -- God will not leave us in death. We will all die, of course. No one gets outta here alive. One day the earth itself will become a burnt-out cinder. But because God is love, all the way down, because God in his love is never reactive, always proactive, God will not leave it at that. God has big plans for creation. His work-in-progress is a new creation. And nothing less than that is what what we celebrate in the church when we baptize.
So let me be absolutely clear: what we do when we baptize infants isn't some family occasion or domestic do. Baptism is an act of incorporation into the church, but it is more than that too. It's nothing less than a re-enactment of the death and resurrection of Christ, which itself marks the end of the world as we know it, the world that ends in death, and initiates a new world, a new kind of life at which the Bible gestures with the phrase "eternal life", which suggests a quality of human flourishing which is our heart's deepest desire and wildest dream. In baptism we participate in the death and resurrection of Christ himself. He dies, we die with him; he rises, we rise with him. That's Romans 6. That's 1 Corinthians 15. That's Colossians 3.
If we really had eyes to see and ears to hear, we'd hear mighty trumpets and angels singing when we baptize babies. When the water rolled off her head, we would clutch the pew in front of us, expecting the building to rock and roll. When the name of the Trinity is pronounced, we would think, "Here come the dead, rising from their graves, jumpin' and hollerin' and two-steppin' into heaven!" When the kiss of peace was given, we would see all the world's weapons of mass destruction melt into chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, the proud and the violent weep with shame, and the filthy rich throw bills from the balconies of their Caribbean villas and welcome the filthy poor to the mother of all barbecues. And when the minister paraded the infant up and down the aisle, we would think that every woman who has ever longed for motherhood would suddenly know that, miraculously, she was with child, and we would envision every child who has ever lived laughing and playing in the perfect park, and when the sun sets and it's time to go home, they discover that their houses are made of gingerbread.
Another baptism -- any baptism! -- means another world.
At the end of the third book of CS Lewis' Narnia chronicles, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when the children are sent back to their own world, Lucy protests:
"It isn't Narnia, you know ... It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?""But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan."Are you -- are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund."I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. That was the very reason you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."
Shortly after our churchly celebrations called infant baptism we go back to the world of Wall Street and Walmart, bewitched by the deities of power, wealth, and fame. But for that hour and in that place, we're brought by the celebration of Christian baptism into the Narnia of the kingdom of God, where a whole new world has been disclosed to us, a world which, unbeknownst to most folk, happens to be the real world.
Infant baptism is a holy experience, that asks us to get our heads and hearts right. To see divine love and grace all over the place. To experience God in the lives of our newborn, and to hope in the coming Kingdom.
Sure, I may have reservations about baptizing infants. But perhaps -- perhaps -- it's really the reservation of God interrupting our world in gracious ways. Perhaps my reservation is less about theology than it is transformation.