What Happens at Baptism
Over the next couple of days I’m going to share some excerpts from a little book I found at the Concordia Seminary library, “Daily readings from the writings of St. John Chrysostom,” Light and Life Publishing, Minneapolis.
When you come to the sacred initiation, the eyes of the flesh see water; the eyes of faith behold the Spirit. Those eyes see the body being baptized; these see the old man being buried. The eyes of the flesh see the flesh being washed; the eyes of the spirit see the soul being cleansed. The eyes of the body see the body emerging from the water; the eyes of faith see the new man come forth brightly shining from that sacred purification. Our bodily eyes see the priest as, from above, he lays his right hand on the head and touches [him who is baptized]; our spiritual eyes see the great High Priest as He stretches forth His invisible hand to touch his head. For, at that moment, the one who baptizes is not a man but the only-begotten Son of God…
For this reason, when the priest is baptizing he does not say, “I baptize so and so,” but, “so and so is baptized in the name of thee Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” In this way he shows that it is not he who baptizes but those whose names have been invoked, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
LSB 593, 4
Here we bring a child of nature;
Home we take a newborn creature,
Now God’s precious son or daughter,
Born again by word and water.
Text: Jaroslav J. Vajda
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