John 3:22, 26 "After this Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea; there he remained..."

“After this Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea; there he remained with them and baptized. ... And they came to John, and said to him, ‘Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, here he is, baptizing, and all are going to him’” (John 3:22, 26 RSV).

Question:

I thought that Jesus did not baptize, that only the disciples did. My interpretation of baptism is that being baptized is an act of faith that cleans men from sin and prepares them to receive through Jesus the grace of the Holy Spirit. My question is: Did Jesus baptize? And now days, how the baptism is done? I know that Catholic Church baptizes babies, but shouldn’t be better to be baptized when man is capable to choose it? And who now days can be a disciple of Jesus to baptize others? Thanks.

Comment:

It is certainly clear that the author of the Gospel of John understood baptism to have been a part of the ministry of Jesus Christ. It would hardly be surprising, since Jesus himself chose to be baptized by John the Baptist. In the early church, baptism was the ritual by which new members were accepted, after symbolically cleansing themselves of old, error consciousness and donning new robes indicative of the new Christ consciousness into which they had been “reborn.” It’s important to note, however, that it was not the ritual that produced the new consciousness. It was an individual spiritual choice, of which the ritual was simply an outer symbol.   As church doctrine later expanded to include the idea of Original Sin—which can be found nowhere in the teachings of Jesus—baptism shifted to become a ritual performed at birth, to cleanse the newborn of the stain of sin inherited from Adam and Eve. Essentially, the simple act of being born was seen as an occasion of sin that had to be immediately offset by the church.   In Unity we don’t believe in the idea of Original Sin—we don’t believe we are forced into human lives as punishment for the sin of Adam and Eve, and we don’t believe that we begin our lives stained with sin. Our christening ceremony recognizes the innate divinity of the child—its true Christ nature—and welcomes it into a new human experience. It also offers the love and support of the spiritual community as the challenges of human existence unfold.   The ritual of adult baptism has not been an established part of Unity—although I have done it on request, and I know some other ministers have as well. The danger with rituals is that we begin to place a superstitious belief on the power of the ritual itself, instead of realizing that it simply offers an outer expression of a change in consciousness within. It is our choice that brings us into Christ consciousness, not a ritual or an outside power. The Christ potential lives within us always, and only we can choose to embrace it and express it in our lives. No outside source can bestow more Christ energy upon us than we already have—because what we already have is infinite and limitless. So if we choose to make the outer observance of a baptism, it would have to be witnessed by someone we trust and love—someone who realizes his/her role as simply being to affirm the inner process that allows us to choose to enter Christ consciousness.   Blessings!

Rev. Ed