Parish of Neil’s Harbour with Ingonish

Lenten Study Group on Sacraments



Session 1 – 14 February 2008, 6:30pm – St. John’s Church


Baptism & Confirmation: Where It All Initiates

How did it start? Why do we do it? What have we promised?


Opening Presentation on Baptism and Confirmation



Questions for discussion


Christian Initiation – Baptism and Confirmation


We open our study of the sacraments in the beginning with our initiation as Christians and our initiation as people of faith. Baptism is the rite through which we become full members of the Christian church. It is through Baptism that we are granted access to all that the church has to offer in the form of the sacraments and other rites. Confirmation should not therefore be seen as some kind of completion of that which has been left unfinished in Baptism, as we will see Confirmation is a means of reaffirming or claiming that which has been made on our behalf. Before I get into the specifics of Baptism and Confirmation I would like to share with you the current debate in the Anglican Church that has to do with how many sacraments there are.


When I went to theological college I met a man who became one of my closest of friends. Some might say that he and I were brought together by chance but I believe that we were brought together by God. My friend, Neale, and I are about as far apart on the scope of Anglican theology and practice as two people can be. He is a committed Low Churchman, and I am a rabid High-Churchman. He is quite left of centre, and I am quite right of centre. He is a hospital chaplain extraordinaire, and I am a parish priest. He is under the very misguided idea that there are only two sacraments while I am quite confident that there are definitely, without question, absolutely certain, that there are seven sacraments, no more – no less!


Neale and I would have some of the most wonderful debates about the number of sacraments. We would see each other across a room and I would hold up seven fingers while he held up two. To this day we are as committed to our own ideas that our debates go on – every now and then I send him an email with just one word, “SEVEN!”


What our debates teach us is that Anglicans can disagree about such fundamental things such as how many sacraments there are AND they can remain friends – and good friends at that.


I will be covering the sacraments as I have learned them and as I see them – much to Neale’s chagrin I’m sure.


The church has defined a sacrament as “and outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace” for many, many, years. It is a good definition and it is one that captures the inherent complexity and simplicity that is sacramental theology.


Today we talk about the two of the sacraments that are inherently linked together: baptism and confirmation.


The practice of baptism comes to us from early Jewish usage of a ritual purification of the body so that you may be made spiritually clean and thus to be able to enter the holy temple. The Jewish laws require that all people who come to worship the Lord are to be clean before they enter the holy ground that is (or rather was) the temple. Our old friend John the Baptist was a provider of this cleansing. John was seen as a wild prophet who had the ability and power to cleanse those who needed cleansing.


Our Gospels tell us that Jesus came to John so that he could be baptized and begin his “official” ministry amongst the people. Every year shortly after Christmas (on the First Sunday after the Epiphany to be exact) we remember this event in the life of our Lord. It is an event that shows us how far the Son of God is willing to go on our behalf. He ritually purifies himself, not because he is unclean but because it is the perfect way to begin his mission to the people of God.


It did not take long for the Christian church to openly embrace this practice of baptism so that it could create new members. The Book of Acts is full of references to the Apostles baptizing the faithful. Whole families were baptized together and began a new way of life following Jesus as their example.


In the first a second centuries we find that the practice goes underground, literally. The church was being persecuted and practices had to change if the church was to survive at all. Thus those who offered themselves to be baptized had to undergo a thorough examination and training before they were allowed to be initiated into the family. They did not just call up the local rector and say, “I want to get done” and had it happen that Sunday – far from it!


The catechumenate, or those who were preparing to be baptized, were educated and tested for a long time (some practices were for as much as three years). Catechumens were limited as to their attendance in formal worship. As unbaptized, they could not actively take part in any worship, for that was reserved for those baptized.


One practice permitted them to remain in the first part of the worship, but even in the earliest centuries dismissed them before the Eucharist. Others had them entering through a side door, or observing from the side, from a gallery, or near the font; while it was not unknown to bar them from all services until baptized.


One interesting practice of baptism involved the candidate to stand on one side of a large pool of water where he or she would be stripped naked, then they were to walk down into the pool of water – which generally was over their head – and climb out on the other side where they would be met by their new siblings in Christ with a long white garment called an alb. The alb is still used to this day by the clergy and those attending in the sanctuary as a symbol of our baptismal purity.


Out of such practices came our uses today. One thing that has never changed has been the use of water for baptism. Water is both life-giving, in that we need it to live; and water is life-taking, in that it can kill us. This wonderful dual nature of water is exactly what the practice of baptism is all about. For baptism is all about dying and living.


In baptism we believe that we are leaving behind us all that holds us back from the love of God. The sin that so easily besets us is being purged and done away with in the cleansing waters of baptism. Those who practice full submersion really take the symbolism to its full extent. When we are fully submerged in the waters of baptism we enter again into the womb and when we break up out of the water we are born again to a new life of being a Christian. Just ask Rollie what it’s like to be fully submerged and then to break up out of the water.


The idea of full submersion comes from the need for the newly baptized to breathe in the breath of God – the Ruach. It is for this reason that in the middle ages if a baby did not cry when it was baptized the priest would pinch it to make it cry so that it would open its mouth wide and breathe in its first breath – the Ruach of God – and be reborn… we don’t do that any more but you would be surprised just how many babies don’t go quietly to baptism.


The debate about when a person can be baptized really began for real in the 16th century when the Reformation was going on. The practice of the Roman church of that time was to baptize infants to ensure that their souls would not be dammed for eternity because they had not been baptized. Both parts of this practice were objected to in very strong manner. The fact that the church taught that God dammed infants did not sit well with the reformers – and does not sit well with this reformer. And the fact that an infant cannot commit him or her self to a faith was of some debate to – and still is. The Anabaptists to this day declare that all who come to be baptized but be able to do so of their own free will.


The Anglican Church in this part of the world encourages adult baptism to be the norm rather than the exception but more often than not we baptize infants and small children. And because we offer this sacrament to those who cannot speak for themselves we have offered a bit of a compromise to the Anabaptists with the use of godparents. Godparents are people who are to make the promises of the child on their behalf with the view of teaching those promises to that child.


In the middle ages the godparents were not just proxies they were also legally obligated to those children should their parents die. Being asked to be a godparent in those days came with more than a feeling of being honoured it might mean that you have another mouth to feed. This practice has fallen away though and now godparents are seen as very close friends.


Baptism of infants also produces another small problem: how do these children take on their own vows when they come of age? To alleviate this, the church has embraced the sacrament of Confirmation – where a people may say for themselves, “I choose to embrace my vows of baptism.” Recently though Confirmation has been seen as “graduation from church” and had suffered the same woes as baptism in that parents feel that it has to “get done” – this is superstition and nothing more.


The sacrament of Confirmation is one that is conferred by a bishop because it is the evoking of the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in the person confirmed and such evocations should only be done by one who is empowered to do so. Bishops have been especially set apart to do this work and we will cover that work in a future session.


In Confirmation we renew our covenant with God and promise to live the vows that were made on our behalf in Baptism – thus the two of them go hand in hand.


In our baptisms we are promising to be disciples we are making solemn vows to our God to live a certain way and to follow the life and example of Jesus. We promise to do away with evil from our lives, and to obey Jesus. We stand before God and vow that this is the life we want to live and the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation are those outward symbols showing to the world the inward grace that we have been blessed with.


These Sacraments are how our ministries are initiated or begun. These Sacraments are how we are initiated or brought into the family that is Christianity. These Sacraments are how we say who we are and what we are about. These Sacraments are what feed us spiritually to do the work God needs us to do in this world.

Biblical References for Baptism


Matthew 20.17-27

Mark 10.33-43

Mark 16.11-20

Luke 12.45-55

John 3.33-4.7

Acts 2.33-43

Acts 8.7-17

Acts 8.31-9.1

Romans 5.19-6.8

1 Corinthians 12.8-18

Galatians 3.22-4.3

Ephesians 3.21-4.10

Colossians 2.7-17

Hebrews 5.11-6.7

Hebrews 9.5-15

1 Peter 3.16-4.4