This is the night, when Christians everywhere washed cleaned of sin and freed from all defilement, are restored to grace and grow together in holiness. It is a line which strikes me profoundly this Easter. A short line from the Exultet we heard expresses the meaning of the Roman Letter of St Paul: “When we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death; in other words, when we were baptised we went into the tomb and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life”. This is the night in which this new life has been made possible by the Resurrection of Christ the Lord.Hence, Easter is not a past event that is just merely of interest to us historically. Baptism means precisely that through the event of Christ’s resurrection, the person baptised is drawn into a new history. This is exactly what St Paul writes in his Letter to the Galatians: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). When a person is baptised, the "I, me, myself", the essential identity of man is changed in such a way that one has become one in Christ (cf. Gal 3:28). A person who is baptised becomes another Christ.
Even though we all gather here to witness to the baptism of a few people, it is important for everyone present here to understand what it really means. [For many of us, this event about to take place, took place for us in time long past]. In baptism, a person who is subjected to the resurrection of Christ is delivered from his or her isolation to become an “I” of a community of believers otherwise known as the Body of Christ. In baptism, we are carried by the mystery of the Resurrection into the mystical Body of Christ in order to live the new life which Christ won for us. The term Body of Christ truly expresses what it means that we live a new life.
For, Jesus says in John’s Gospel: I live and you will live also (Jn 14:19). How? Well, He is alive to us and we are able to live for Him because He sent His Spirit to animate His Body the Church—to animate each and everyone of us. He is alive to us as He continually nourishes us through every single sacrament He gave His Church. He is alive and He meets us at every turn of the Liturgy. He is alive as every event we encounter opens up the possibility of meeting Him.
That is why the Resurrection cannot be an event of the past. In baptism, the sacrament of the Resurrection, the Risen Lord reaches us and seizes us as we in turn grasp hold of Him. And the good news is that He holds us firmly even when our hands grow weak. He keeps us secure even when our courage fails us. Furthermore, as we grasp hold of him, we reach out to hold each other’s hand simply because together we make up the Body of Christ. No one is ever baptised to be alone because when we are baptised, we are grafted into the Body of Christ. It is Christ who draws us into Himself.
The implication of the Resurrection and we becoming taking part in it is tremendous simply because it allows us and gives us hope because of what Christ can do for us. This is important only because the Church, the Body of Christ is made up of fallible and weak members—sinners, if you like. There are some who stay away because they feel that they are not worthy of Christ. They struggle and are discouraged by personal failure and thus, they stay away out of fear. There are some who have stayed away because of their bad experience with weak members of the Body of Christ. Instead of becoming light, we become stumbling blocks—scandals to faith in Christ. For example, if you want to meet unkindness, join the seminary or religious life. The people supposedly closest to Christ can be the most unkind. The point is, we constantly may fall short of the tall order to love but precisely because the Church is Christ’s Body, our hope is not what we can do but what Christ can do for us. We may fail but He will not fail us if we allow the strength of His Resurrection to carry us. In fact, He feeds, heals, strengthens, forgives and SENDS us continually through the ministry of the Church in the sacraments. In short, His Body, the Church cannot fail simply because Christ will not allow it to happen. This is one reason why no one and nothing can ever take away a Christian’s joy that he or she, through baptism has become a member of Christ’s body; that one has been claimed by Christ.
At Easter, we sing full of confidence in Christ who unites heaven and earth in a cosmic event. "Rejoice, heavenly powers... Rejoice, O Earth!" The Resurrection is not merely a historical event but an everlasting event in which Christ “came back from the dead and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, the Father’s Son who lives and reigns forever and ever". Amen!
