Since the Protestant Reformation, there has been a debate amongst Christian families and households concerning when their children’s baptizing should take place. Should we wait til they can decide to make the act of faith on their own? We hear this conversation on whether or not not baptize infants, but from this reading, we are put in touch with this ancient tradition, or household tradition. The sense is that the family, whom is not only just economic or social unit for self or for society, but a school of spirituality. We should look at how baptism assists our families and how it calls us to a higher dignity or duty. The first is, their is a sense in which that child is loved from the very first moment, the child does nothing to merit that love, buts its given anyways, unconditionally. its important for that to take place and cultivated in the life of the child at the earliest age so that they will eventually open up on how gods loves them the same way, unconditionally, without merit. When we talk to people who are angry with God, or having difficulities believing, it is many times a moment, or moments in their life where they didn’t feel love, unconditionally, and felt like they had to merit that love. Tradditionally, the Native Americans will first look at their newborn children then decide what to name them. When we name a child, we pay attention to the uniqueness of of his or her identity, and that opens up a child as they grow to a sense of vocation that God is calling them uniquely, to grow in the faith and advance in life and fulfill their purpose, the one God has for them, after moulding them in the whom.
Please read 1 Peter Chapter 3 & Matthew Chapter 3 before continuing, but you may proceed without.
Baptism gives the child a unique calling, that they weren’t an accident, that there is a reason for them in life which gives them a sense of belonging. Baptism, is a notion of coming in to the church, and just like when a child is entered into its family, they have to understand how they belong. A person once said that the reason they baptized their children right after birth was because they wanted their child to know that they are apart of something bigger than themselves. In this reading from Mark, God invites us to understand our lives that so that we know we are apart of the life to come. God rend the heavens to order to communicate with his son Jesus, and he will do the same for us. If you’re having discussions about Baptism, know that it is an important part of the upbringing of a child, as you will give them a sense of how much they are loved, and how they are created individually and unique. Lastly, baptism will prepare them for their faith journey, and that they will always have a place in the church and in a place the life to come, so long you stay steadfast to the commandments God gave to Moses, and which Jesus preached in continuation of how to be obedient in the eyes of God.
At Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River, it is the first time the holy trinity manifests itself on earth - The Son, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit.