Why baptism matters

Part of the family, the Klingler family that is. Your last name is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God, the Triune God, the Christian God. You bear the family name and receive the family inheritance.

Identified with God. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Dead in the water, as though we died with him, having the penalty for our sin paid for, having the wrath of God taken care of in His substitutionary death. Baptism also gives us new life as adopted children of God. We become sharers of divine life and temples of the Holy Spirit. We are now made righteous by God and live in a state of grace, that is, we live in union with God because of his gracious and loving initiative.

God continues to assist us by many helps that are called actual graces. Thus, we have the ability to live and act under the guidance and light of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This helps us mature in goodness through the practice of virtues, such as the Cardinal Virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. By Baptism we become members of the Church, the Body of Christ.

You have a new identity. You belong to God. A good friend of ours had her first child this spring, a boy. We saw him last week for the first time. As I picked him up, I was amazed first at how light he seemed, our children having grown almost to adulthood.

I smiled at him, made some goofy noises and he looked at me as if he were going through some kind of internal biochemical reaction. Maybe he was doing that. Then his mother took him back and said his name, and a huge smile came across his face. He knew the one to whom he belonged. This is a transforming truth. The primary identifying feature about you is not where you live or how you vote or how much money you have or where you came from or who your father is or even your gender or your race.

You are a child of God through faith, in baptism. In baptism we are marked, claimed, and given access to the grace that God wants to give us. This is our fundamental identity. Is Baptism a prerequisite for becoming a Christian?

No, it is not. Much like a wedding ring is a symbol that tells the world we belong to our spouse, Baptism tells the world that we are a Christian. And we eagerly wear wedding rings because we love our spouse and want everyone to know we are taken. In summary, Baptism is how we publicly express our faith in Jesus Christ.