I want to continue my exploration of what it means to be a Christian. Some people would say that you have to be baptized and to keep the sacrament! That’s interesting. First of all, from my experience – those insisting on baptism would reject anything Jewish. But baptism was a Jewish rite of purification which John the Baptist, probably an Essen and definitely a Jew, preformed in the Jordan River where he baptized Jesus of Nazareth a Jew. And during the process of that baptism Jesus is identified as the Son of God as a Jew. This is the event to which people point for baptism as a requirement for being a Christian. It is all very confusing isn’t it. Some people who claim to be Christians reject all or some of the sacraments including baptism and the Eucharist. Does that mean they are not Christian? Some would say yes. I would not agree for I find the issue to be confounded by what we have accepted as part of our faith from our Jewish fore fathers or mothers, how we have transformed and made what was theirs our own, or just accepted what was theirs as our own.
