Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (3)

 

 

After Bonhoeffer’s chapter, Preliminary Questions, we come to Baptism, for after all, Part II of Discipleship is titled, The Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship, and how can we speak of entering into the Church of Jesus Christ, of becoming a member of the Church, without speaking of the means of entrance, which is Baptism. Furthermore, how can we live a life of discipleship, and how can we participate in the Church, without constantly being aware of our baptism – our baptisms as individuals, and our baptism as the Body of Christ?

 

Baptism is a living experience in Jesus Christ, it has a beginning, but it has no end…its beginning is in Genesis 1:1, in the Beginning – Jesus Christ. Yet, I suppose it does have an End, a Completion in the One who Completes all things, the Alpha and Omega. Baptism is a mystery that can be lived but not defined, it can be described but not confined within the gravitational pull of earth. As far as I am aware, no tradition since the Fathers has displayed a unified Biblical approach to baptism and perhaps this is because the Fathers were more interested in proclaiming Christ and the Scriptures as they are written, rather than in devising theological systems that confine the Word of God and place it in subjection to religious man – professional religious man. This is, of course, speculation on my part, and it is no doubt too simplistic, I am thinking out loud.

 

There is mystery in Baptism just as there is in the Incarnation, just as there is in the Lord’s Table, just as there is in the Word of God. We are presumptuous to think we can define the Incarnation and explain it, whether in ten words or in ten thousand words – again, we can experience it in Christ, we can describe it to some degree, but we cannot comprehensively explain and define the Incarnation. Nor can we comprehensively define and explain Baptism and the Eucharist and the Bible. We can say, however, that their roots are in the Incarnation and that they draw us into Christ and keep us living in Christ.

 

I think one of our problems in thinking about baptism is that we tend to define ourselves in terms of what we don’t believe rather than in terms of what we do believe. We see something in other people and traditions that we don’t agree with, whether in doctrine or practice or both, and we want to ensure that we are not like “those people.”  

 

An example of this is an article I recently read on baptism by an advocate of viewing baptism as an “ordinance” that is strictly symbolic. The author, rather than explore the many facets of baptism in the Bible, focused on others who teach “baptismal regeneration” and insisted that since his denomination could not believe that doctrine, that the only alternative was a view that saw baptism as symbolic. Here is an author who is more interested in being against something than in being for something.

 

Let me confess that I often fight that tendency in myself, and that I very much used to be like this author. My early Christian experience contained an element of being known for what my group was against rather than being known for what my group was for, but this isn’t unusual, and we can see it in both long-established traditions as well as in newer groups. The central problem is that this approach misses Jesus Christ. We can be more interested in distinguishing ourselves from others than in following Jesus and serving others.

 

There are many tributaries that flow into the Grand River of Baptism, and to think that our tributary defines the River deprives us and those around us of a glorious element of our identity and inheritance in Christ.

 

Can someone read Colossians 2:9 – 14 and tell me that there is not a living experience in Baptism? Can we read Romans Chapter 6 and not see a living and ongoing work of the Holy Spirit within us in Christ in Baptism? Does not 1 Corinthians 12:13 portray something more than symbolism?

 

On page 31 of Worshipping with the Church Fathers, Christopher A. Hall quotes Ambrose, “Do you believe in his working but not in his presence? Where would his working come from were it not preceded beforehand by his presence?” (This book by Hall is an excellent introduction to the Fathers and a sacramental view of the Word, Baptism, Eucharist, and our life in Christ.)

 

Bonhoeffer begins Baptism with arguing that the Scriptures, whether they are the Synoptics or Paul, testify to us of the Presence of Jesus Christ with us. While we may find different terminology in the Gospels than in the Epistles, they are a unity in their testimony of Jesus Christ and His call to discipleship.

 

“Baptism is not something we offer to God. It is, rather, something Jesus Christ offers to us…In baptism we become Christ’s possession. The name of Jesus Christ is spoken over baptismal candidates, they gain a share in the name; they are baptized “into Jesus Christ” (…Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27; Matt. 28:19). They now belong to Jesus Christ. Having been rescued from the rule of this world, they now have become Christ’s own” (page 184).

 

Bonhoeffer will expand on this in the next few paragraphs, but in the meantime, do we view baptism as “becoming Christ’s possession”? Do we live like this?

 

Do we live like this as individuals, as families, as congregations, as denominations and movements?

 

No pun intended, truly; but have we watered down baptism to the point where it really means nothing? Where it is no longer living? Where at best it is like having a shopper’s card in our wallets?