Theologically and vocationally, I learned early on to take the Sacrament of Baptism with utmost seriousness. Probably this was for two main reasons, first my doctoral studies in Luther’s sacramental theology, working under the tutelage of the eminent Reformation historian, Heiko Oberman, second my exposure as a practitioner to the influence of the twentieth-century Movement for Liturgical Renewal, which, among other things, championed a deep theology of Baptism. Anyone with eyes to see can detect those influences in many, if not all, of my writings and, I trust, in all of my liturgical practices over the years. More particularly, I have even written autobiographically about my own baptismal mysticism.
Along the way, as a matter of course, I’ve also regularly taken issue with a number of popular American Protestant baptismal practices with their fixation on the cute little baby being baptized and their superficial theology of name-giving. Call this baby romanticism. Biblically speaking, however, Baptism is a matter of life and death. The guiding metaphor should always be: dying and rising with Christ.
Hence I have long preferred baptism by immersion whenever possible, surely baptism using tons of water splashing all over the place. In this context, I have often thought of Baptism in terms of an experience I had several times as a teenager, and which I’ve written about on occasion: when, on a hot summer day, my friends and I would drive to the Niagara River, some miles above the Falls, and try to swim against the current, which was barely possible. Frankly, it also was scary, even terrifying. Again, the guiding metaphor for Baptism, I believe, should always be dying and rising with Christ.
To this theological and spiritual end, I have for some years treasured the not widely known Baptismal theology and practices of Ambrose of Milan (d. 397), a figure of great significance in the life of Augustine of Hippo. This is Gary Wills’ description of Ambrose’s vision of Baptism, in contrast to Augustine’s, in Wills’ short but illuminating study, Font of Life: Ambrose, Augustine, and the Mystery of Baptism (New York: Oxford, 2012), 137:
For a variety of reasons having to do with his African duties, Augustine’s approach to Baptism differed at a basic level from Ambrose’s. Ambrose had a mystical, poetic, and all-inclusive theology of Christian initiation. He saw Baptism as the culmination of the entire sacred history leading up to Jesus’ fulfillment of all the prophecies that pointed directly to Baptism. The whole meaning of the Trinity was enacted and revealed in the action at the font, which brought new Christians into the inner dialogue of the persons with each other in the Godhead. The reality of the church was embodied in the rebirth of humanity out of the saving waters.
Augustine, by contrast, had what has been called a “minimalistic” view of Baptism, legalistic, almost mechanical, with further steps often needed to reach the full Christian life, beginning with the relatively impoverished procedures of infant Baptism, in contrast to the rich indoctrination of Ambrose during Lent and the Easter octave.
As on occasion you make the sign of the Cross and remember your own Baptism, then, I invite you also to join me in cheering for the deep baptismal theology of Ambrose.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.