Luther’s
Baptismal Piety
Luther’s greatest contribution in the area of
baptism is one that his descendants still have not fully appropriated, although
there are some signs this is changing. Luther has what we may call a baptismal
spirituality or, to use the traditional Protestant term, baptismal piety. For
Luther, baptism eloquently fulfills his vision of a sacrament as a promise accompanied
by a sign.
In “The Holy
and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism,” Luther declares “there is no greater comfort
on earth” than baptism (Blessed Sacrament
of Baptism, in Luther’s Works,
vol. 36, p. 73). Baptism remains as a lifelong assurance that “I am baptized,
and through my baptism God, who cannot lie, has bound himself in a covenant
with me” (Ibid., p. 36). Baptism is a way of life, abiding in the knowledge that one’s
sins are forgiven. It is “so great, gracious, and full of comfort, we should .
. . ceaselessly, joyfully, and from the heart thank, praise, and honor God for
it” (Ibid., p. 42). The Christian life is a “continual remembrance of this
promise made to us in baptism” (Babylonian
Captivity, in Luther’s Works,
vol. 36, p. 59). For centuries, Lutheran fonts were placed at the front of the
church to remind worshipers of their baptism.
The
Christian life is lived in the aftermath of baptism, and this event remains a
lifelong comfort or consolation. Luther could find the courage to live through
each day by reminding himself that he was baptized. When sin or conscience weights us down, “we
must retort, ‘But I am baptized’” (The Large Catechism, in The Book of Concord, trans. Theodore G. Tappert [Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1959], p. 442). So the “Christian life is nothing else than a
daily Baptism” (Ibid., p. 445). Penance is simply a return to baptism. Above
all, baptism is the reassurance that we belong to God and that God’s action in
baptizing us is a promise effective for the rest of our lives.
But baptism does imply the presence of faith,
and this was to lead to problems. Early on, Luther simply asserted that “infants
are aided by the faith of others, namely, those who bring them for baptism” (Babylonian Captivity, in Luther’s Works, vol. 36, p. 73). Later
on, he asserted that “we pray God to grant him [the child] faith. But we do not
baptize him on that account, but solely on the command of God” (Large Catechism,
in Book of Concord, p. 444). Luther
is not troubled by the problem of finding faith in an infant.
Baptism is
intimately connected with the forgiveness of sin for Luther. Throughout life,
penance is a return to baptism. Penance is not the second plank after shipwreck
(sin) for the ship of baptism is still afloat and we may return to it again and
again. Therefore the Christian life is one long living out of one’s baptism, to
which one can return with hope and confidence.
Baptism was also directed related to the
death and resurrection of Christ. For this reason, as we have seen, Luther
prefers the sign-act of immersion. But in his baptismal rites of 1523 there is
an even more cosmic dimension. For the central theological statement of the
rite, he assembled his famous flood prayer, which relates God’s use of water in
cleansing the world through Noah and the ark, the deliverance of the Jews from
slavery through the Red Sea, and the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. Water
serves now for “a rich and full washing away of sins” (“Order of Baptism,” in Luther’s Works, vol. 53, p. 97).
Baptism was so much a summation of the gospel
that Luther found it necessary to produce his “Order of Baptism” in German in
1523, preceding by three years the publication of his German Mass. His
baptismal rite contains most of the medieval ceremonies even though he declares
them unnecessary. Three years later, he published “The Oder of Baptism Newly
Revised.” Gone are some of the purity ceremonies such as blowing on the child,
giving of salt, one exorcism, the anointing of the ears, and the two anointings
of the head. Most of these ceremonies have biblical roots—blowing refers to the
Holy Spirit, as does salt; the effetha, touching the ears and mouth (Mark
7:34), to hearing and speaking the Word; the candle to Matthew 25:1-3; the
garment to Galatians 3:27. Both of Luther’s rites are emphatically for
children, the Gospel reading being Mark 10:13-16: “People were bringing little
children to him.” There are several parallels in these two rites to the changes
in ceremonies in the Roman Ritual before and after Vatican II. In our time, the
flood prayer has been widely admired and imitated in other churches. (James F.
White, The Sacraments in Protestant
Practice and Faith [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992], 34-35, emphasis in
bold added. See also “The Relation of Baptism to Faith,” pp. 35-41, documenting
Luther’s debates with Zwingli et al. vis-à-vis the efficacy of baptism)
