Today
we have the baptism of an infant, Emmet Donato, who
is just four months old. There is nothing like a new baby to give us
hope; the promise of the next generation. The Gospel today is
particularly appropriate for a baptism, where Jesus offers the
Samaritan woman ‘living water’, which can only come from God. But
why baptize a child at all? Why not wait until they are an adult and
what is the importance of Baptism anyway?
Way
back at the beginning we believe that God created everything, the
heavens and the earth, the visible world and the invisible world. It is also worth mentioning that faith and science don’t contradict each
other, they just look at things from a different perspective. Science
looks at how our universe developed, step by step; what exactly happened. Faith asks why it is
there in the first place, why is there anything instead of nothing. The two
most important things that the creation story in Genesis tell us is
that it was God who created and that what God created was
fundamentally good. It also says that the human being was God’s
greatest creation, God’s masterpiece, because we are made in his
image with free will and the ability to love.
We
also understand that somewhere way back at the beginning our first
parents rejected God’s word, rebelled against what He taught them and so
sin entered the world. That was the Fall, which is itself a very
mysterious thing. The problem was that we ourselves could not repair
the damage we had done. The bridge between heaven and earth had now
been broken. So God came among us in the person of Jesus who was
fully human and fully divine, in order to make up for the damage done.
By sacrificing himself for us he reopened the way to heaven, the
possibility of eternal life with God which we had lost. That’s why
Jesus’ coming among us is so important and why Easter is such an
extraordinary feast. It is the feast of our being set free. It is now
possible to go to heaven again.
When
we baptize someone we are saying yes I believe all that God has done
for me and I accept it. I want to be drenched in the life of God.
When you step out into a summer down-pour in Florida you get soaked,
‘baptized’ in the water. That’s what it means. By being
baptized we are saying ‘Let me have it!’ Let me have all that God
has done for me. When we baptize an adult they first have to go through
a time of preparation where they learn about our faith. Only when
they are ready do they receive baptism. If we baptize an infant we do
it on condition that they will be taught their faith as they grow up.
Otherwise it would be hypocrisy.
In
this Gospel Jesus has an unusual encounter with a woman. In the
culture of the time it would have been unthinkable for a Jew to speak
to a Samaritan woman on her own, and even more outrageous to share a
drinking vessel with her. The fact that she was there in the middle
of the day on her own also tells us something. Women would have gone
to the well early in the morning or in the evening in groups and not
with men. Being there on her own at noon indicates that she was not
welcome in her community. She was shunned because of her lifestyle.
But Jesus reaches out to her and offers her ‘the waters of life’.
What is this life? It is life in Christ and all that he is offering to us.
Following his teaching is the path that will lead us to heaven.
Baptizing someone is offering them all that Jesus offered the woman
and also offers us.
We
only want the very best for our children and that is why we baptize them as infants and
immerse them in all that God offers us. As they grow we try and pass
on that same faith and that takes all of us. We bear witness to them by
the way we live. If we do our best to live our faith it will help
them to see how real and important it is too.
If
you only knew what God was offering you and who it was that was
asking you for a drink, you would have been the one to ask, and he
would have given you living water.
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