Essays on Eastern Orthodoxy
I Heard a Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Essay on the Baptism Service
September 6, 2005
We went to our first Orthodox baptism on Saturday. It wasn't on Sunday because it takes a whole hour to baptize a kid in the Orthodox church. It was awful. Paul talks about this in his epistles (associating baptism with death and all that) but for the first time I realized just how awful a thing baptism really is. I choose the double entendre “awful” intentionally. In the older English literature, particularly among the Puritan writers, it is not uncommon to see God described as awful (or more often with the older spelling of awefull). And etymologically (lit. “full of awe”) it is a perfectly appropriate term for God. But “awful” has taken on a rather different meaning, but the contemporary meaning is not too far from the term's original richness.
Americans are probably most closely in touch with the richness of the word “awful” when they read C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles. (This is worth mentioning right now because a new movie version of the first book will be coming out at Christmas.) The Narnia Chronicles feature a lion named Aslan (who represents Christ) who is both wonderful and frightening; perfectly awe inspiring and perfectly awe-full, depending on what the characters were thinking or doing when the Lion unexpectedly showed up. As Lucy is reminded somewhere in the first book, Aslan is a wild Lion and needs to be treated as such.
Initiation into Christianity has this same dual character. Since one is being initiated into the fullness of the grace and mercy of God, it is a perfectly wonderful thing. Since it is necessary to reject allegiance to one's own desires and expectations, it is a perfectly awful thing. As Jesus says, the Kingdom of God is taken by violence, and those who wish to grab hold of it must do so violently. It is a painful thing to wrench our own desires and expectations out of the tight clutches of our heart to make room for the one perfect desire that was originally communicated to us as the love of God.
In the West among the baby baptizers baptisms are a cute and heart-warming thing, what with the baby dressed up in some fancy outfit, the parents (and often family) gathered around, beaming, the child crying when touched by the water, and the mother comforting it after a few seconds of discomfort. An Orthodox baptism is a world apart from all that.
First, the parents have no role in the service. At the service Brenda and I attended, the mother ran the video camera because there was really nothing else for her to do. (The father had been unexpectedly called to National Guard duty in Louisiana and had left just hours before, so he was not present.) The baby was the responsibility of the sponsors (better known as God-parents) who have to be Orthodox Christians in good standing in order to qualify.
Second, instead of a few seconds of discomfort, the child is put through a series of uncomfortable upsets for a whole hour while steadfastly being withheld from the comfort of her parents. It started out simply enough with lots of prayers, but eventually all the baby's clothes were removed and there she was naked, being held high in the cold air, screaming her lungs out. Then she was immersed three times in the baptismal waters (thankfully warm), but each time taken out and held high dripping in the cold air like some poor fish that had just been netted from the Sea of Galilee.
Finally, the priest handed the naked, dripping, and screaming child to an adult (not a parent) who dried and dressed her. The child continued to cry uncontrollably because mother was nowhere close. All of this drying and dressing was done by the strange but loving hands of the members of this child's new community. The mother could only watch her crying baby from a distance.
After that the child was anointed with oil. By this time the crying was reduced to an occasional outburst and lots of whimpering. I don't think it was because she was suddenly happy in her circumstances, but rather because she was exhausted.
Finally the service was over and the whole congregation greeted the child and congratulated the sponsors. The baby's eyes were red and swollen with horrible sorrow and the mother was still standing apart from the receiving line watching all this as an outsider as if it were really none of her business. Finally, when everyone had offered good wishes and the candles were all blown out, baby and mother were reunited.
Why put a child through all that sorrow? Why put parents through all that grief? The answer came near the end of the service when the child was tonsured. Three small clumps of hair were cut from her head. The priest said that the cutting of the hair was a sign of the sacrifice the child was making by becoming part of the family of God. Those who are ordained to the various orders of the church (even the candle bearers, better known as altar boys) are tonsured. But the gravity and awe-fullness of this sacrifice was oh so much more real in this setting.
The sacrifice of the mother, having to watch all these things being done to her daughter, was a painful thing to watch. The sacrifice of the child, being brought into the kingdom, cold, wet, bawling, and in the buff, while being handed back and forth to relative strangers (compared to the comfort of her own mother's arms) was shocking to a first time witness such as me. And yet that is the nature of the Kingdom of God. When I face God, gripping tightly to my passions and sins that I love so dearly, and I am subjected to the painful discipline of grace required to help me loosen my grip, I cannot retreat to my mother's or my wife's arms, I cannot close my eyes and snuggle into the soft blankets of earthly comfort to avoid the awe-fullness of God's self-giving love. And neither could little Sadie.
It was truly awful.
And I look forward to the next time I can participate in such a holy and loving event.
Copyright © 2005 James E. Nelson (Just Another Jim). All Rights Reserved.
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