By DON FIER
When a newborn infant enters this world, he or she normally bursts onto the scene with the fullness of natural life, with all the sense faculties and capabilities (e.g., to see, hear, feel, etc.) in varying degrees of development.
On the supernatural level, however, the newly born child is devoid of divine life as a consequence of original sin, the common heritage of all human persons (excepting our Lady) due to the disobedience of our first parents. Satisfaction for the infinite debt incurred by Adam, the forefather of all mankind, was made by God Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ when He freely submitted to His ignominious death on the cross.
To avail each individual the opportunity to receive a share in the supernatural life He won by His sacrifice, our Lord instituted the first of the seven sacraments, Baptism, which we began to examine last week.
Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, describes the Sacrament of Baptism as “the foundation of the whole Christian life, the gate to our life in the Spirit, and the door to the other sacraments. . . . The one baptized is plunged into water to symbolize being buried into Christ’s death and then rising up as a new creature” (The Faith, p. 111).
Other names given to this first sacrament of initiation include the “the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5) and “enlightenment” because the newly baptized now “walk as children of light” (Eph. 5:8). As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) highlights, “In accordance with the Lord’s will, it is necessary for salvation, as is the Church herself, which we enter by Baptism” (n. 1278).
Mention was made last week that numerous “figures” or “types” of Baptism are present in the Old Testament, events which foreshadow and prepare the way for the New Testament sacrament. The first can be seen in the very opening lines of Sacred Scripture:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness” (Gen. 1:1-4).
This event is recalled during the blessing of baptismal water during the Church’s liturgy on the Vigil of Easter: “In Baptism we use your gift of water, which you have made a rich symbol of the grace you give us in this sacrament. . . . At the very dawn of creation your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them the wellspring of all holiness” (Roman Missal, Easter Vigil 42; as cited in CCC, nn. 1217-1218).
As noted in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible — Genesis, an attentive reader of these verses “will recognize the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in the beginning. The Father creates heaven and earth, the Spirit moves over the waters, and the Son, who acts while the Father is speaking, separates the light from the darkness (St. Ambrose, The Holy Spirit 2, 1)” (p. 17).
Although this revelation of God’s triune nature is so subtle that it was unrecognized for millennia to come, one can see a connection to a more explicit manifestation of the Holy Trinity at Jesus’ Baptism by St. John the Baptist:
“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased’” (Mark 1:9-11).
Both the Genesis and Gospel accounts reveal the activity of the Holy Spirit and both take place upon the waters: “The Spirit who had hovered over the waters of the first creation descended then on the Christ as a prelude of the new creation, and the Father revealed Jesus as his beloved Son” (CCC, n. 1224).
In his long-running series on the sacraments in The Catholic Servant (TCS), Fr. John Paul Echert observes: “Whereas Genesis describes the first act of creation, which was principally natural, the Gospel describes a re-creation in Christ, which is a spiritual regeneration” (volume XVI, n. VIII, September 2010).
Similarly, “the Church has seen in Noah’s ark a prefiguring of salvation by Baptism” (CCC, n. 1219). As revealed in the Book of Genesis, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life . . . all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. . . . [God] blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the air….Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark” (Gen. 11-12, 23).
The connection to Baptism is explained in the New Testament: “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:20-21).
Many think of the forty-day deluge as a total destruction of the Earth. However, it can be seen more accurately as an act of de-creation/re-creation to purge the world of the filth of sin while leaving intact what was good and salvageable. The event was, in a sense, intended to provide mankind with a fresh start while maintaining continuity with creation as it originally occurred.
“In a spiritual way,” explains Fr. Echert, “Baptism does the same thing: it does not destroy our human nature but it washes away all sin — original and personal — and spiritually recreates us with supernatural assistance to live in accord with the divine design” (ibid.).
Yet another Old Testament event that prefigures “the liberation wrought by Baptism” (CCC, n. 1221) is the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites during their exodus from the slavery of Egypt. As related in verses 21-30 of the Book of Exodus, the Lord miraculously intervened on behalf of Moses and the Chosen People with a strong east wind that divided the waters and allowed them to pass through the Red Sea on dry land. The Egyptians, who stubbornly pursued them in their hardness of heart, were wiped out to the last man when the waters of the Red Sea returned to their normal depth after the Israelites had safely crossed.
St. Paul makes explicit reference to the connection that exists between the crossing of the Red Sea and the Sacrament of Baptism: “I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:1-2).
Just as the Lord rescued the Israelites from physical slavery by parting the waters of the Red Sea, so He rescues us from the slavery of sin through the waters of Baptism which, in a spiritual sense, accomplishes “the washing of regeneration.” Just as the Chosen People continued on their forty-year journey to the Promised Land, through the waters of Baptism Christians continue their journey toward the Promised Land of Heaven.
The Jordan River
The last Old Testament prefiguration of Baptism considered in the Catechism is the crossing of the Jordan River when “the People of God received the gift of the land promised to Abraham’s descendants, an image of eternal life” (CCC, n. 1222).
Once again, as had taken place at the Red Sea forty years earlier, the Israelites made their passage on dry land — the upstream waters miraculously ceased to flow: “While all Israel were passing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan” (Josh. 3:17).
Of note is that the men of Israel, at Joshua’s command, “set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day” (Joshua 4:9). Fr. Echert notes that John the Baptist appears to make reference to these same twelve stones at the time of Jesus’ Baptism (see Matt. 3:9). If this is indeed the case, “it means that the activity of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus occurred at the very place in the river through which God delivered His people into the land of Israel” (TCS, volume XVI, n. IX, October 2010).
Another Old Testament type of Baptism not covered in the Catechism bears mentioning. According to the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible — NT, “Naaman the Syrian was cleansed from leprosy at this [same] location when he was ‘dipped’ seven times in the river at the command of Elisha (2 Kings 5:14)” (pp. 11-12).
Just as the waters of the Jordan cleansed Naaman of physical leprosy, so the waters of Baptism cleanse the Christian’s soul of the spiritual leprosy of sin.
+ + +
(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress