Baptism is the sacrament of hypostatic union, or the hope of it. That is,
· We are brought face to face with our inability to save ourselves (we receive in baptism what by nature we cannot receive)
· But remain manifestly human afterwards
· Living now in direct relationship with Christ,
· And receive the Spirit of Jesus to be his disciples
Whatever else we might want to say about baptism, it is the rite where we are brought face to face with our own need and God’s desire to fill that need through Jesus Christ: God responds to our failure and emptiness with the grace of Jesus Christ by filling our emptiness with the Holy Spirit. Baptism is the rite that celebrates the iconic identity between Christ and us whereby we become icons of Christ himself, yet in this iconic likeness we are nothing more than who we were uniquely always meant to be. Baptism is the sacrament of our becoming fully human and proleptically announces the crowning of our humanity through union with God in Christ and his Spirit. This is why we were created, and why God became Incarnate in Jesus and gave the Spirit into our hearts: we are an emptiness filled by God, but in being filled by God's Spirit we become who we are meant to be in utter freedom.
