Baptism

Wherever I go, wherever I have ever gone, I have found exquisite beauty: beauty in the mountains, beauty in the seas and oceans, beauty in the skies, in the clouds and in the cries of the birds.  I find beauty in a single flower, in a berry, in the deer coming up to my deck, and in the way the human body is fashioned.

What the animals do not, and cannot, share with us is the drinking in of beauty, or of wrapping our souls in the images of sunrise, sunset, and the drifting of clouds.  As human beings,

we do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it....That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods.  They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into the human soul; but it can't.  They tell us that 'beauty born of murmuring sound' will pass into a human face; but it won't (C.S.Lewis: The Weight of Glory, pp 12-13)

 

Lewis's words remind me so much of the many times I have stood still in the midst of a day so gorgeous that I wanted to embrace it, hold it, become one with it.  He reminds me of the beach-walkers who cannot resist at least putting their feet into the waves.  Don't we smile at the scent of pine needles on the forest floor and the blue skies overhead -- opening ourselves to as much of the experience as we can pull into ourselves?

 

Baptism is the outward sign of an inner reality--the truth that we desire to be immersed in something to the point of being utterly filled with it.  Somehow, along the way, our concept of "baptism" became connected to the idea of joining a church, reforming one's life, and following some legalistic patterns of life.  But Baptism is nothing more than allowing God's holiness, His goodness and beauty, and relationships to become part of us, and of allowing ourselves to be immersed in Who and What He is---loving and relational beauty.  We drink in, embrace, and become submerged in the dynamic, and ever-renewing, relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit, and in their outpouring of Divine Goodness into the hearts of men of good will. 

 

That is 'baptism:" to lose oneself and to be lost in God, to allow ourselves to become part of Who He is, so that we are re-made in His Image and likeness -- like the very Son of God who became man to draw us into Zoe: Life itself, with all its beauty.    God's own Purity, His own Humility, His own Truth is not separate from us, to be admired and worshipped but not enjoyed and tasted.  To be "baptized" in God's Zoe is to drown in beauty, in purity, in humility, and in truth -- more than we can ask or imagine. 

 

Our sacraments and rituals are not just ceremonies; they speak and image for us truths that we long for but cannot imagine might actually become real.  We are in God, and He is in us!