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Take a sip of water (from empty glass) and say, “My goodness it’s dry today!”

 

In today’s gospel we hear about the encounter between Jesus and John the Baptist.  For the beginning of my homily today, I need a young volunteer from the congregation.

 

    Choose a 10-12 year old and have them come and join me on the steps

 

This gospel reading always reminds me of when I was your age.  I loved to tell “Knock-knock” jokes.  Do you know how they work?  Good!  Well this one was always one of my favourites.  If you have a small glass of water, you can come up to someone and say, “Knock, Knock!”

 

And you answer?…  Come on, everyone in the congregation; let’s hear the answer! When I say, “Knock, knock!”…

 

          “Who’s there?”

 

And I say, “John!”  And you say?…  (everybody?…)

 

          “John who?”

 

And I quickly say, “John the Baptist!”  And then I dump the water on your head!   (But the glass is actually empty, but the congregation and the “victim” don’t know that!)

 

Of course I wouldn’t use real water!  You never know how tough their mother or father might be!  Thank you for being a good sport!

 

My volunteer didn’t need to do that, but he wanted to show us all that he was part of the community.  A little like Jesus in today’s gospel.  Surely Jesus didn’t need to be baptised or repent of any sins, but it was important to show all the others that he belonged!  He was one of us!  He was willing to submit to the baptism – the same as you and I.

 

It also became clear that in baptism, we can expect the coming of the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus experienced the spirit in his baptism and since he was one of us, he showed us that we too will receive the spirit.

 

It also showed us that baptism is a time for a new beginning, and Jesus’ life changed from a quiet carpenter’s helper to the one who proclaimed that the Kingdom of God was here!

 

Today’s gospel helps us reflect on our own baptism and on the meaning of baptism in today’s church.  I know that for many Catholics my age and older, and even some who are younger, baptism was looked on as a sort of heavenly insurance policy – a quick way to get rid of the original sin that is part of every human since Adam, when they are born.  After all, John spoke of a baptism for the repentance of sin.  It seemed that all we were concerned about was what might happen to a child if they died before they were baptised.

 

I believe we have come to trust God a little more these days that he will know how to treat an innocent child who comes to him before their time!  We are less concerned about the negative side of what might happen and are concerned more, as we should be, about the positive side of what will happen after the baptism for the rest of our lives.

 

Just as the baptism of Jesus was the beginning of his life as the proclaimed messiah, our baptism is just the beginning of our life as a Christian.

 

Baptism is an initiation into the community first, a way of belonging to God’s people and getting their support and prayers behind us.  It’s a way of letting them know where they belong!

 

This weekend we will be baptising four new children into our faith, and yet there are many out there who say, “Why baptise a baby?  Why not wait until the child is old enough to decide for him or herself whether he wants to be baptised?  How can a child choose to join our faith?”  And they make many similar arguments.

 

Today, I’d like to reflect on that for just a moment.  And with all due respect, I would like to add my own comment, “Baloney! – Balderdash!”

 

The simple truth is that every person will make the choice of what faith to follow, if any, as they grow older, whether they are baptised or not!  This is part of the role of confirmation when we ask the spirit to come again and confirm our commitment.  As adults we face choices every day that force us to confirm our baptism, confirm our commitment to our faith, and sometimes we fail, and sometimes we sin!  Does that mean we should never have been baptised in the first place?

 

When your teenage children and college-aged kids are out of the house or living away at school, they will eat whatever they want to eat no matter what you taught them was good for them when they were young.  But that didn’t stop you from giving them the best possible nutrition you could when they were little.  You didn’t feed them greasy fries and Pepsi when they were babies, you tried your best to build a solid foundation of health.

 

You sent them to a school you chose to learn the way to cooperate with others and grow in knowledge, you didn’t just send them out the front door and hope they might learn something.

 

You protected them and watched where they went, you didn’t just let them wander around unsupervised at the mercy of anyone passing by!  And you did all this to show them you love them, by making sure that everything that is important for their growth and development is taken care of and to teach them how to be ready to choose the right things when they are old enough to choose for themselves!

 

So how can anyone say, “Deprive them of the spirit!  Deprive them of the grace of baptism until they choose!”  If we don’t believe that grace makes a real difference in our lives and the Spirit has a real effect on the world, then why are we in this church today?  If we don’t believe that sacraments give us this grace then how can we call ourselves Catholics?

 

Our spiritual health needs a base of nutrition, just as our body does, and it starts with baptism and moves on to the Eucharist and to Confirmation.  How can a child choose to join us if we have denied them membership when they needed it most?  From the earliest days of our church, we have continued to baptise infants so that the beginning of their lives may be the beginning of their membership in the Christian community.