In the so-called “sacramental” traditions (Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox), we use two materials when we baptize someone. The most obvious is water. No less important is the oil.
We don’t use oil in the same quantities as we do water – though, in some ancient church communities, a candidate’s whole body was anointed with oil, while in others oil was poured into the font along with water. In some places, the baptizand’s hands, feet, face and head were anointed as part of the baptismal rite.
It seems likely that St. Paul knew this rite of baptism in the earliest days of the Church. In Ephesians, he writes, “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit...,” that marking probably referring to the same liturgical action we make when we trace the cross in oil on the forehead of the baptized and say, “You are sealed with the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Paul likened that anointing with the Holy Spirit to a down-payment of sorts: “…the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession.”
It is the oil, chrism, that gives us the word “christening.” That’s how fundamental this part of the baptismal ritual is. For the oil is the Sign, or symbol, for the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ baptism, it was the anointing with the Spirit that revealed him as the Anointed One, or the “Christ” (same root word as chrism). Luke describes the moment like this: "… when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove." Until that moment, Jesus was Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee. From this point on, he is Jesus the Christ.
John the Baptist is an even more specific witness: And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” (John 1:32-33)
We might even say the oil is more important than the water. The water symbolizes the cleansing, forgiving, dying and rebirth realities of baptism. But it is the gift of the Holy Spirit uniting us with Christ that makes us Christians. That’s where our new identity comes from, the birth of a new person, you plus Jesus. Without the Holy Spirit we are just strivers; with the Spirit of Christ in us we are carried along on the Mission of God – and that cannot fail.
Do you feel you’ve received the Holy Spirit? If you’ve been baptized in the Church, you have. And this is the original understanding of Confirmation – from the Latin word confirmare, to strengthen. The bishop would come and lay hands on the baptized to fill them with the Spirit.
Yet our churches can be awfully quiet about the Spirit, so that many are barely aware of this Life Force by which we are renewed to be most fully who we are, and empowered to do more than we can “ask or imagine.” If you don’t feel very well acquainted with the Holy Spirit, there’s some spiritual work to do. We can begin with the simplest of prayers: “Come, Spirit of Christ, fill me. Come, Spirit of the Father, renew me. Come, Holy Spirit, empower me.” And then see what happens. We have been sealed. The deposit has been made. We can start collecting our inheritance.
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