Someone recently asked on Facebook, “What is the Easter Vigil for?” The person asking is from a Christian tradition that does not usually celebrate baptisms at the Vigil. If you’re old enough, you will remember when that was true for Roman Catholics. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults was issued shortly after Vatican II, but it took a couple of decades for baptism at the Easter Vigil to become common in Catholic parishes. Now, if we don’t have a baptism at the Vigil, we miss it. We feel the “incompleteness” of the Vigil.
For those of us who regularly celebrate baptism at the Vigil, we might ask a different question: “What does baptism do?” There is an easy answer and a mystery answer. The easy answer is that baptism joins a person to Christ. The mystery answer takes some work.
How does the RCIA talk about baptism?
The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults says:
Immediately after their profession of living faith in Christ’s paschal mystery, the elect come forward…. (212)
We could spend a weeklong retreat just unpacking that phrase and still not make a dent in the mystery. Something about the “profession” causes an immediate response. Remember way back at the Rite of Acceptance, when the elect were still inquirers, we asked them what they wanted? And we promised them that God would grant them their heart’s desire. We enjoined them, “Commit your lives daily to [Christ’s] care, so that you may come to believe in him with all your heart” (RCIA 52 A).
Now, here, after all this long time, they do believe with all their heart. They do not just profess faith. They profess a “living faith in Christ’s paschal mystery.” To be able to believe in mystery is next-level discipleship stuff.
The rite goes on to say that the elect
…receive that mystery as expressed in the washing with water. (212)
They are not washed with any water, however. This is water infused with mystery. At the Easter Vigil, just before the elect profess their living faith in Christ, we bless the water that will wash them.
The blessing thus introduces an invocation of the Trinity at the very outset of the celebration of baptism. For it calls to mind the mystery of God’s love from the beginning of the world and the creation of the human race…. (209)
Baptism is more than just a ritual cleaning
The elect, then, are not just washed; they are washed in “the mystery of God’s love.” When we see the elect going down under the water, we see in the water the moment of creation when God made us. That wild, crazy, big-bang of grace that took seven days for the All Powerful to power up to full charge.
And at the climax was us. At the peak of creation was/is this moment when another of God’s most beloved of all creation is being adopted into membership among the people of God (see RCIA 212).
Did you ever wonder why water? We know God doesn’t need water to save us. And yet, water is essential for baptism. That’s because of what water “says.” Water, especially water infused with mystery, is a powerful sign:
Therefore in the celebration of baptism the washing with water should take on its full importance as the sign of that mystical sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection through which those who believe in his name die to sin and rise to eternal life. (RCIA 213)
It is not the water that saves us; it is the story we tell and the mystery the water “signs” that saves us. It is the action of the divine persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, manifest in the water; it is the prayer of the minister and the people of God; it is the act of washing, the sacrament, that saves us.
It is the mystery of God’s love that saves us.
Letting the mystery shine through the water
To “say” what baptism does isn’t something we can say in words alone. We have to celebrate baptism in such a way that the mystery shines through. That is why we celebrate the mystery at the Easter Vigil. That is why we use an abundance of water,
…either immersion or the pouring of water…to ensure the clear understanding that this washing is not a mere purification rite but the sacrament of being joined to Christ. (RCIA 213)
What does baptism do? The easy answer is that it joins a person to Christ. The mystery answer takes some work. It takes a people of God, professing living faith in Christ’s paschal mystery and using sacramental signs like washing God’s beloved in water infused with divine mystery.
Every time we do that at the Easter Vigil, a bit more of the mystery is revealed.
Your Turn
What do baptisms look like in your community? How do they remind your community to keep telling the story of God’s love for us? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
