Liturgy of Initiation

Baptism & Chrismation

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters … And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:1-2, 9-10.

God brought everything out of non-existence into existence with the gathering together of the waters and the appearance of dry land. This is why when the prophet Jonah was asked what God he worshiped he replied, “I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Jonah 1:9. And this is why when the Hebrews escaped death in Egypt, Moses “stretched out his hand over the sea [and] the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided.” Exodus 14:21. In the words wind, waters, and dry land we clearly see the connection between the Exodus and the creation of the world. Exodus is the story of a second creation, or rather a recreation, the escape of the Hebrew people out of slavery and death under Pharaoh, and the beginning of their journey into the Promised Land. In the same way Baptism for the Christian is a second birth, a recreation, an escape from the slavery of sin and death, and the beginning of a journey taken with Christ through the cross into the Kingdom of God which is the Church. When we stand at the waters of Baptism, we stand not only on the banks of the Jordan with Christ; we stand at the primeval waters of creation.

We take this journey with Christ and in His Church. This is why the entire community gathers together around the Baptismal font. This is how it should be because sin, as a personal, willful turning away from God, causes disintegration of the self, and separates us from others. Baptism marks a renunciation of our former life in sin, a turning back to God, a reintegration of the self, and an initiation into a community of believers, who as the Church are one Body in Christ.