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PAGE 5—January 27,1977
God Brought His People
A Mew Birth
BY FATHER JOHN J, CASTELOT
People speak easily of “the miracle of life.”
Some would take violent exception to this
phrase on the grounds that nothing is quite so
ordinary as life. Why call it a miracle? This sort
of thinking reflects a rather narrow view of a
miracle as a stupendous reversal or suspension
of the laws of nature. The Bible, however,
reflects no such understanding of miracle, for
the simple reason that biblical man knew
nothing of what we call “laws of nature.” The
Old Testament had no word corresponding to
our word “miracle,” with its strong overtones
of the extraordinary. It spoke of “signs,”
“symbolic acts,” and sometimes described them
as extraordinary, but that was it.
The New Testament, spoke of “acts of
power” in the Synoptics and “works” or
“signs” in John. All these words, since they
were general, applied to a wide variety of acts
and events, from what we would call the
providential all the way through to the truly
extraordinary. And so the crossing of the Red
Sea was not a “miracle” in the same sense as
the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
It is proper, then, to speak of the miracle of
life, one which elicits wonder from the human
heart. Closely allied with this phenomenon is
the miracle of birth. There is something almost
mystical about the expression on the faces of a
young couple looking at their firstborn child.
Oh, they know they are biologically responsible
for the squirming bundle. But there is
something beyond the biological there,
something intangible, undefinable, something
which we call, for want of a better word, life.
It is the result of a truly creative act, and while
human beings can fashion, produce, they
cannot, strictly speaking, create. The transition
from non-life to life calls for a dimension which
transcends the merely biological, a dimension
which can properly be called miraculous,
“ordinary” though it may be.
With this background, it may be easier to
appreciate more fully what the Scriptures say
about rebirth to a new life. This new birth, too,
involves a creative dimension, one that is
strongly reminiscent of the first creation, when
God called all things from non-being to being.
In Ezekiel’s famous vision of Dry Bones, the
prophet saw a valley floor littered with skeletal
fragments scattered helter-skelter. Asked by
God if those bones could live again, he
stammered, “Lord God, you alone know that.’
Then in his vision he saw the bones come
together, become enfleshed and alive, until
finally a vast, vibrant army stood before him. It
was thus that God promised to bring His exiled,
hopeless people to a new birth. The whole
incident (Ez 37, 1-14) is described in terms
suggestive of a creative rebirth to a new life.
In the preceding chapter, the same powerful
act of God is described in terms of a “baptism”
of water and the spirit: “1 will sprinkle clean
water upon you to cleanse you from all your
impurities ... I will give you a new heart and
place a new spirit within you, taking from your
bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural
hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make
you live by my statutes, careful to observe my
decrees” (Ez 36: 25-27). One thinks
immediately of John the Baptizer’s words: “I
have baptized you in water; he will baptize you
in the Holy Spirit (Mk 1, 8). In the Christian
sacrament of Baptism all the rich imagery of
life-giving, recreating water, so common in the
Old Testament, finds its transcendent meaning.
Through this sacrament, the miracle of rebirth
takes place in our lives, lives which now take on
a new, heavenly dimension.
The reality of rebirth through water and the
Spirit is brought out clearly in the Fourth
Gospel’s account of Jesus’ dialogue with
Nicodemus. These are the crucial verses:
“Jesus gave him this answer: ‘I solemnly
assure you, no one can see the reign of God
unless he is begotten from above.’ ‘How can a
man be born again once he is old?’ retored
Nicodemus. ‘Can he return to his mother’s
womb and be born over again?’ Jesus replied: ‘I
solemnly assure you, no one can enter God’s
kingdom without being begotten of water and
Spirit’ (Jn 3, 3-5).”
The theme of life-giving water is taken up in
the next chapter, when Jesus offers the
Samaritan woman “living water.” (See Jn 4,
12-14) The life to which we are reborn, Paul
tells us, is the life of the risen Christ: “Are you
not aware that we who were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Through baptism into his death we were buried
with him, so that, just as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, we too
might live a new life ... In the same way, you
must consider yourselves dead to sin but alive
for God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6, 3-4,11). (See
also Gal 2, 19-20; 6, 15b).
“WHAT SHOULD A REBORN Christian be like . . .?” asks
Mary C. Maher. “What should this radical Christian claim of
Baptism as rebirth be like? We in the United States are aware of
a revival of ‘Born Again Christians.’ That makes some uneasy.
There are serious moral implications toward others which
rebirth in Christ insists upon.” A group of fundamentalist
Christians gather on a Southern riverbank to begin a Baptism.
(NC Photo by Kenneth Murray)
The Unfolding Of A Person
BY GERARD A. POTTEBAUM
All kinds of people claim to be “born-again
Christians.” Even our new President Carter. But
what might this experience be about?
Some describe it as a sudden dawning,
perhaps at a religious service. Others awaken
through a profound personal crisis. But most of
us hack along, more sure of being on-agairi,
off-again, than born-again.
We’re told with biblical assurance that unless
we’re born again of water and the Spirit we
shall not enjoy life everlasting. So we have
water poured on us, and we hope the Spirit
acts, as He’s not so easy to manage since He
moves where He wills. But the question lingers,
what does Baptism really do about rebirth? It is
probably safe to say that Baptism doesn’t do
KNOW
YOUR
FAITH
(At! Articles On This Page
Copyrighted 1977 by N.c. News Service)
anything about rebirth, not automatically, not
like a water-cooler responds to the button we
push. Baptism can, however, provide us with a
sense of rebirth, if vve can recognize other
expressions of rebirth in our lives, or come to
sense that all of life is being-born, not again,
but as part of the same birth-event, the
unfolding of a person.
Sometimes we take that expression
“born-again” too literally, and fall into the
dead-end that Nicodemus confronted, and
wondered how he could fit back into his
mother’s womb to be horn again. Being bom in
the flesh can be seen as part of the same birth
event which we celebrate in Baptism. In
Baptism we articulate in sign and gesture what
we believe to be so when human life took flesh
again in the newborn person. You can’t have
one without the other.
That’s obvious from one point of view: You
can’t baptize someone who has not been born.
However, you say, a person can be born and
not be baptized. Being born is not a choice a
person makes. That’s automatically part of
one’s getting here. But being baptized is not
automatic, and that is just the point: one’s
Baptism - one’s coming to life - is something
each of us has to work at. It’s far from
automatic. It is a choice we make: how to live
so that I’m not just going through the motions
of being alive.
So when we relate this understanding of
Baptism - a choice we make about how to live
- to the question, “Is being born again possible
today?” we are confronted with a struggle more
difficult and profound than the Church faces in
renewing the baptismal rite so that people
might enjoy more fully a sense of being born
again. We are confronted with the struggle to
become persons in a mass culture, in which one
seems to find fewer and fewer opportunities to
enjoy being recognized as persons.
This lack of recognition happens so regularly
we’ve grown to expect it. For example, a
family’s television set needed repair recently, so
the local department store chain was called, as
that is where they purchased the set. The
repairman came and was asked to check not
only the set purchased from his store, but
another set of the same model, purchased
elsewhere. “Sorry, we service only sets
purchased from our store,” the repairman said.
“Sounds like subtle pressure to buy only
from your store,” the people argued, and called
the Service Department manager for an
explanation.
“We service oniy our own sets,” the manager
argued.
“You service sets and not customers. You
service machines, not people,” they reminded
the man.
“Well, okay,” the manager said. “Tell him
that he can fix your other set, too.”
When we are made to feel that being a
person is less important than being a machine
purchased from a certain store, one has a hard
time feeling born at ail, much less wonder
about being born again. But when one person
recognizes another, then one can enjoy a sense
of being born, again and again and again. That’s
what Baptism is about: people recognizing in
each other the presence of the Spirit, human
life renewed, and affirming that life through
our care for each other. If we can do that, then
being born again today is not only possible, it
can be a very pleasant experience, something to
celebrate every day of our lives.
“IT IS QUITE PROPER,” Father
John J. Castelot writes, “to speak of
the miracle of life, one which elicits
wonder from the human heart. Closely
allied with this phenomenon is the
miracle of birth. There is something
almost mystical about the expressions
on the faces of a young couple looking
at their firstborn child.” (NC Photo)
Rebirth: Is Being Born
Again Possible Today?
BY MARY MAHER
Getting rudely edged out of traffic by a car
bearing a “Be Reborn in Jesus” bumper sticker
is disconcerting. What should a “reborn”
Christian be like - not in a picture but on a
highway, in an office, on a soccer field, in a
beauty parlor, at worship? What should this
radical Christian claim of Baptism as rebirth be
like? In every age great Christian thinkers have
grappled with the implications of that question.
They have offered images appropriate to their
time but not always to ours. And most of us
have sought its meaning in the concrete events
of everyday life, happily or unhappily touched
by theological theory.
A great Southern writer, Flannery
O’Connor, gave us a noteworthy short story on
this topic. A small child, victimized by parents
who neglected to note his presence in their
often insensitive existence, hears a minister
promise happiness and peace if a person will
just go into the water and be reborn. One day
as the child flees from a drunken brawl, he
remembers this promise and walks out into a
river to be reborn. He dies.
In reading most of O’Connor’s works, one is
struck with irony at a level that causes one to
pause. Yet she repeats her theme: That which is
tenderest in humankind gives birth to that
which is tragic if it is not attended to. Baptism
asks us to attend to each other in the manner
that makes rebirth possible, not tragic. This
child believed in the tender promise of
wholeness. It was tragic that those who could
have mediated this to him, his parents, did not
understand the effects of their lives upon him.
He saw so little of Baptism’s effects in this
world.
We in the United States are aware of a
revival of “Born Again Christians.” The
executive office of our land houses one. That
makes some uneasy. That uneasiness may have
historical base: baptized Christians for centuries
carried out destruction. The rape of Indian land
throughout the southwestern United States was
done by the baptized. On the other hand, we
are hoping the Carters may make it clear to this
nation’s people that there are serious moral
implications toward others which rebirth in
Christ insists upon.
Baptism is not always understood in relation
to Gospel life. Recent writing on evangelization
has made it clear that people need to know the
Gospel in order to live any measure of
sacramental life.
We have all been born, yet none of us has
any consciousness of that birth. We might
blanch if someone said, “I remember the day I
was born - it was such a hot, August day.”
Consciousness about our birth grew gradually.
We all struggled to exit a womb and then
gradually to adjust to the world we forged
ourselves into. We metaphorically learn that
meaning of birth thousands of times
throughout our lives. We learn it in the dialectic
of learning dependence and independence of
life. We learned it when we got up for school on
days we did not want to and found
(sometimes!) the day was good after all. We
learned the pain that the fetish of avoiding pain
brings the first time we owned up to childhood
pranks. We learned that collecting pleasure is a
dangerous way to abort pain. We learned what
to share with whom and how to live when we
discovered we had hurt others or they had hurt
us. We learned with whom the secrets of our
spirit were safe and who would throw them out
with casual rejections of us. We learned that we
must learn!!
Baptism and its imagery of rebirth
took on the very human coloration of life itself.
It was not a one and for all job, like walking
into a river or suddenly “catching the Lord
Jesus.” Baptism was a life in the very way Jesus
said it would be. Only the Gospel could help us
trace out what some of the implications of that
life were. Baptism meant dying as well as rising.
It meant dying unto rising. It is the seed that
Jesus said ought to give new life by being cast
on new ground. We matured far beyond the
myopia that life is “fun and games.” And then
it occurred to us somewhere along the line that
we are always being reborn -- even when the
risks involved felt like death.
The choice of birth imagery for Baptism is
not arbitrary. It is primary to the inspiration of
Christian Scripture. It is given to us in a
sacrament to speak to us and of us -- of the
deepest and simplest ways of living the gift of
our lives. Baptized into the death and
resurrection of Jesus, we are given the power of
living into the fullness of His strength.
We may not choose to proclaim our baptized
state by toting the Bible around on the streets
of our cities and asking people to be reborn in
Christ. We may even find that offensive. The
quality of our lives is that which we know
speaks. That fact is humbling for we know that
often we live opposed to the quality that we
proclaim that the Gospel invites. But that itself
is part of the rebirth which day in and day out
we say that we live -- error and insight, help
given to others and help withheld, love
understood and love misunderstood, aversion
and affinity. Baptism has never claimed that
rebirth takes us to superior realms of life
beyond the human. It has been the claim that
such grace invites our original humanity - made
very clear in its beauty in the flesh of Jesus
Christ.
Finally, if Flannery O’Connor’s irony calls
us to reflect upon the communal nature of
Christian life this much ought to be clear:
There are always people in the water anytime
any one of us decides to wade in deeper. People
who will sponsor further life in us, perhaps
especially when they demand we be true to
ourselves.
A