Baptismal meditation, Easter Sunday

Genesis 29:10b-11: Jacob went up, and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted his voice and wept.

Caesarius, bishop of Arles in Southern France in the fifth century, said that the patriarchs of Israel were all types of Jesus. It was not accidental, he pointed out, that the patriarchs all met their wives at wells. This is a mystery: “Since all three of those patriarchs [Isaac, Jacob, Moses] typified our Lord and Savior, for this reason they found their wives at fountains or wells, because Christ was to find his church at the waters of baptism.”

On this passage in particular, he noted the sequence of water and kiss: “when Jacob came to the well, Rachel first watered the flock, and then he kissed her. It is true . . . unless the Christian people are first washed from all evil by the waters of baptism, they do not deserve to possess the peace of Christ. Could not blessed Jacob have kissed his cousin upon seeing her, before the flock was watered? Doubtless he could have, but a mystery was involved: for it was necessary for the church to be freed from all iniquity and dissension by the grace of baptism and thus to merit peace with God.”

The waters that come from the greater Jacob cleanse and refresh, so that we can be incorporated into His peace. This is what is happening today: He is a lamb born into the flock of the good shepherd, and today he is being washed and watered, incorporated into the Bride, and kissed with the kiss of peace. Baptism is this kiss of peace, Jesus’ welcoming caress.

All that we do here today depends on Jesus’ display of power in rolling away the rock and bursting from the grave. The power of baptism is the welcoming kiss of Jesus, but Jesus can welcome us as His bride only if He is risen from the tomb. The church has long recognized the connection between Easter and baptism, though the practice of baptisms during the Easter season was probably not as widespread as some have thought. Yet the churches that observed Easter as a baptismal season understood that baptism incorporates the baptized not only into the death but into the resurrection of Jesus. Baptism is a washing of regeneration and renewing of the Spirit not because of any power in water but the power of Jesus’ resurrection. Until the stone is rolled away, there is no cleansing, refreshing water for the flock.

Remind your son that he was baptized on Easter. Remind him often that he died and rose again with Jesus, so that he might walk in newness of life. Tell him about the strength of Jacob, his father, and above all tell him about the greater power of Jesus, who rolled the stone away to give living water to his sheep.