“A baptism of fire” is a phrase widely used to describe a difficult introduction to a new job or activity. It’s been our collective “baptism of fire” in reverse over the last week or so. We were still wishing each other “a happy New Year” when it greeted us with heavy and frequent snowfalls. The initial winter wonderland quickly turned into a white nightmare. The unexpected wintry weather has tested all of us in various ways, and it looks like we are not completely out of the woods yet. Our “baptism of fire” in reverse is still pretty much ongoing.
The phrase originated in St John the Baptist’s prediction that the Messiah, whose immediate arrival he announced, would “baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11), followed by a vivid image, familiar to his audience, of separating the grain and burning the useless parts. It symbolised spiritual purification and divine judgement, and was a call for one’s fundamental change, as John called it, repentance, to avoid the fiery end. So, there’s a deeper meaning to the phrase that often escapes our attention, that if you successfully emerge from the “baptism of fire”, you will be stronger, more resilient and experienced, ready to face other challenges that might come your way. In that sense, we should not only accept difficulties when we face them but, maybe perversely, seek ways to challenge ourselves in order to develop ourselves. Nobody has ever become great through complacency or slacking; greatness is forged in fire.
The judicial and punitive aspect of the “baptism of fire” seemed to dominate St John the Baptist’s announcement, accompanied by his fiery rhetoric aimed at some of his audience. In due course, it led to John’s confusion, or even frustration, when, himself jailed, he learned that Jesus didn’t follow John’s fiery predictions. As we heard on the third Sunday of Advent, he sent his disciples to Jesus seeking assurances that he was the expected Messiah. In response, Jesus pointed out the positive outcomes of his actions: “The blind can see. The crippled can walk. People with leprosy are healed. The deaf can hear. The dead are brought back to life. And the Good News is being told to the poor.” (Matthew 11:5) In a sense, John had to take the medicine he had prescribed to others: to change his vision of God, from that of a punitive judge to one of a caring father.
That was the mission Jesus was appointed to fulfil through his ministry. It was described in the prophetic vision, as we heard in today’s first reading, by a series of images where gentle care prevented further damage: “He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” in order “to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,” a metaphor for restoring people’s dignity and their bond of love with God. St Peter beautifully summarised it in the second reading: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” Although St Peter clearly indicated when Jesus began fulfilling this mission, “after the baptism that John proclaimed,” he offered no closing date. It wasn’t done by mistake or omission; St Peter considered himself, as well as other Apostles, called to continue what Jesus began. The mission was and remains open-ended, because “God wants everyone to be saved and to fully understand the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4) Each generation needs those who will carry out the mission “to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon.”
St Peter described the baptism of Jesus as being “anointed […] with the Holy Spirit and with power” and consequently, “he went about doing good […] for God was with him.” The same principle applies to each one of us. It’s not so clear because we often baptise babies, obviously too small, too young and massively undeveloped to fulfil the mission. By the time they have grown, the call must be renewed, and it happens when the sacrament of confirmation is administered. It’s often seen as an inconsequential sacramental “box-ticking” exercise, whereas its purpose is to equip individual Christians to carry out the mission entrusted to the Church by our Lord. How we do it depends on our individual talents, skills and vocations, but the underlying reason is the same as for Jesus himself: “He went about doing good […] for God was with him.”
Photo by Victória Kubiaki on Unsplash
