Years ago I met a Methodist minister who had worked in Africa. He told me that one day some of the villagers where he was working came to him to ask if their children could be baptised. He was taken by surprise. Infant baptism was not a main part of his tradition and had not been something he had yet explained to these new adult Christians. He wondered with a laugh whether Catholics had been snooping. “Who has told you about children being baptised?” he asked them. “No one,” they answered. “But being baptised is such a blessing for us, we want our children to have it too.” Parents instinctively want to share their benefits with their children.

Of course, not everyone sees baptising the young as a benefit. Some would prefer to wait, believing that the choice of religion is something that people should decide for themselves, not have imposed on them when they are young. Others go further and identify it with indoctrination. Children should not be programmed in this way. But is baptism an imposition? Is baptising programming? What is being done when a person is baptised?

Baptism is spoken of as new birth. Christians see this spiritual birth as bringing about a sharing in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. And the image of birth is instructive. From the moment of my conception there is something about me that is true and will remain true for all time and for eternity: I am the child of my parents. That truth is unchangeable, whether I like it or not. And so with baptism. Baptism establishes an unchangeable relationship between the person baptised and Jesus of Nazareth. Once a person has been baptised, that baptism can never be undone. Is this programming?

But consider human birth again. I am unalterably the child of my parents, but that fact does not determine the kind of relationship I have with them. I may love them devotedly or loathe and despise them, or I may view them with indifference. Birth does not determine and cannot guarantee how the relationship will develop. And once more, so with baptism. The proof is all around us. We see people who have been baptised, but there are those nonetheless who have rejected the Gospel or become indifferent to it. They have not been conditioned by the words spoken and the water that was poured over them. The way a relationship develops, whether in a family or a faith, depends on much more than birth and baptism. All relationships, whether social or religious, have to be nurtured with love; that is how they bear fruit. Sometimes, of course, they may be nurtured with poison, and then they lead to violence and death.

Christians do not believe that only those who have been baptised are loved by God. The baptised are not the charmed circle of God's beloved. Everyone is loved by God. No one is excluded. We exist because God loves us. We have been created by God's love. So why should anyone need bother to be baptised?

The Christian answer to that question is so that we may receive and respond to God's love in a way that has been revealed by Jesus of Nazareth, a way of service and unfailing love for others, especially for those whose needs are greatest. Sharing his life, we are called to spend ourselves in service and love.

Christians have often failed to live up to this demanding ideal, but the path of the Nazarene is this path of unreserved loving which accepts the consequences of love, even as He did, even to death. And that death was anticipated in his own baptism which is commemorated this weekend.

When sinners are baptised, their sins are forgiven. Jesus was without sin, but in accepting even John's baptism, he stepped into the place of sinners. He identified himself with them. On the cross he was to bear the weight of sin and death, and overcome them. At his baptism he inaugurated his public ministry by anticipating the cross.

Monsignor Roderick Strange is the Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome