Baptism by Fire, Part 2

Baptism by Fire, Part 2

I baptize you with water…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.[1]

Lest anyone write off baptism as a trite or minimally-meaningful religious rite, there are interesting psychological and symbolic aspects to baptism by water that are worth considering. Bodies of water are common archetypes for the unconscious, meaning that which exists outside of our day-to-day awareness. Because something is unconscious to us does not make it less real or impactful, but its reality exists and its impacts occur in ways we are usually unable to perceive. The surface of water is a liminal boundary between our conscious awareness (above the water) and that which is unconscious to us (under the water). Because we cannot (usually) see what is under the surface of the water, it is unknown. The deeper we explore under the water or into the unconscious arena, the more mysterious and often frightening it becomes. I vividly remember fishing in a river with an uncle when I was a kid, walking in the ankle to waist-deep current with little to no idea what might be lurking beneath the surface – poisonous snakes? Electric eels? Flesh-eating piranhas? Journeys into the unconscious and other dark places often ignite paranoia in the uninitiated.

With that in mind, being baptized by full immersion is a physical, symbolic act of being led out of our conscious awareness (above) into the unconscious (below) and back. It represents a brief foray into the unknown. This has religious and spiritual significance since most aspects of spirituality, including God, exist in the realm of the unconscious because they cannot be seen, measured, or known by our normal ways of knowing. More than that, everything in creation exists in both conscious and unconscious realms, at least from our limited perspective. In other words, there is much more to whatever we see than what we see. This includes that which is physical to us, like bodies and trees, as well as that which is intangible, like thoughts, memories, and emotions.  In that context, baptism is an introduction to the unknown world of the Spirit and an invitation to explore more deeply beyond the limits of our physical senses.

My point is that baptism by water can be understood and experienced at different levels of awareness, any of which can be meaningful to a person based on where they are in their spiritual development. Not only that, one’s baptism – whether as an infant, adolescent, or adult – can be understood and experienced from different levels of perception decades after the actual act. While we cannot change what happened in the past, we can change how what happened in the past affects us today. Understood literally, baptism is the imitation of an odd ritual that Jesus went through. A little more deeply, baptism represents the washing away of our sins, similar to how taking a shower washes away the dirt from our skin. Since our sins are not as visibly obvious as dirt, it requires a little more imagination to understand baptism as washing sins away. Deeper still, baptism can be understood as an initiation into a world of mystery and wonder, a world where we must surrender our need to control outcomes and content ourselves with experiencing our life-events as they are, without pretending or needing to know the how or why of those events.

What I have shared about baptism by water to this point is how baptism has been perceived since the time of Jesus and before. Throughout his ministry, however, Jesus took traditional understandings and injected their implications with steroids. In the Sermon on the Mount[2], Jesus took a number of the Ten Commandments and expanded their reach exponentially. He would say, “you have heard that it was said…” before quoting a commandment, followed by, “but I say to you…” where he would increase the threshold for obedience. For example: “You have heard it said…’You shall not murder’…But I say to you that if you are angry with your brother or sister, you will be liable for judgment…”[3] He effectively equated the murdering of another, something few of us do, with being angry at them, something all of us do. Similarly, he says, “You have heard…you shall not commit adultery…But I say that everyone who looks at (another) with lust has already committed adultery…in (their) heart.”[4] Under Jesus’ commentary on behavior, our actions matter, but our thoughts, feelings, and intentions matter just as much.

John the Baptist announced that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. True to his nature, and as he did with traditional interpretations of behavioral expectations, Jesus raised the intensity on baptism, too, as I will explore next week.

This is the 14^th in a series titled Crucifying Christianity, Resurrecting the Way.Life Notes are my explorations into mysteries that interest me. They are not objective truths but invitations for readers to explore, too. Engage with me or explore contemplative spiritual direction at ghildenbrand@outlook.com.

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[1] Matthew 3:11

[2] Matthew 5-7

[3] Matthew 5:21-22

[4] Matthew 5:27-28