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6 The Return to Baptism If baptized life is return to baptism, it must be itself sacramental. Rites of the return to baptism grant the Spirit, since this is bap­ tism's content. By onlypenance, the rite of the Spirit's return, does the Spirit grant himself as such after baptism. Other rites bestow the Spirit for some juncture or task of baptized life. Four such rites have been so continuous and prominent as to appear on the tradi­ tional list. Of these, confirmation has already been discussed. The others are ordination, healing, and marriage. RITES OF THE SPIRIT If the content of baptized life is indeed return to baptism and not a develop­ ment of baptism or a progression from it, baptized life must be as sacramen­ tal an event as baptism itself.1 The Supper, moreover, will not by itself suf­ fice; we need rites whose visible and audible communication is specifically "Back to baptism." The church has had five such rites of enough persistence and prominence to appear on the medieval list of seven. One of these, con­ firmation, should never have become a return to baptism and has been dis­ cussed in its proper place as a part of baptism. Rites of return to baptism must be rites that bestow the Spirit, either as such or in respect of particular gifts or charisms, for the Spirit is the whole positive content of baptism. A rite by which after baptism the Spirit as such bestows himself can only be a kind of "repetition" of baptism, following the Spirit's "withdrawal" and involving a fresh "repentance" and forgiveness of sins—the quotation marks already indicate the main dogmatic problems of penance. Otherwise, the Spirit bestows specific gifts for specific crises and tasks of life in the church. Thus there are, or should be, innumerable churchly in­ vocations of the Spirit. Identifiable rites develop at regular and prominent junctures. There should be, and in fact are, many such rites; that only three, ordination, healing, and marriage, appear on the traditional list of "sacraments" is partly an historic narrowing and partly the result of the New Testament's concerns. The total events of penance, ordination, healing, and marriage (and of 367 1 0 / THE MEANS OF GRACE whatever other such rites may appear) are each complex and unique. But the central act of bestowal is similar in all: prayer with imposition of hands, anoint­ ing, or both. Thus the rites of return to baptism in effect repeat that part of baptism that can be repeated, though we must not presuppose that inten­ tion to do this always shaped their historical origin. Nor is this accidental; the last act of baptism and the sacraments we now consider all depend on the biblical association of the Spirit with this ritual pattern. Imposition of hands, on other people or on objects, is so obvious a gesture of acceptance and interpersonal empowerment that its religious use is almost universal.2 It was variously practiced in Israel and early Judaism, notably in the latter at the ordination of rabbis.3 From the first, it was clear to Christians that true religious community and power is the Spirit, so that in one way or another a communion of the Spirit was always what they said by their use of the universal religious gesture. In the New Testament, imposition of hands appears as (1) a healing act ofJesus (e.g., Mark 5:23 par.) and of the apostles (e.g., Acts 28:8), (2) the gift of the Holy Spirit associated one way or another with baptism (Acts 8:l4ff.; 19:5-6; Heb. 6:2), and (3) as creation of "apostles," "deacons," and "presbyters" (Acts 6:6; 13:3; 1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6). In the Near East and the Mediterranean littora, anointing with oil was a necessity of life, a refreshment, and often the only possible medical treat­ ment. Therefore it too became a widely practiced religious gesture of many applications also in Israel.4 The only sacramental anointing mentioned in the New Testament is for healing; one passage commands the practice as a rule (James 5:14). The much wider use of anointing in the ancient church prob­ ably depends partly on the New Testament's use of the metaphor of anoint­ ing for decisive Christian realities (1 John 2:20; 2 Cor. 1:21). PENANCE No specific rite of penance is mandated by Scripture,' nor any specific pro­ cedure. But...

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