In his 1964 book on understanding media, Marshall McLuhan coined the now familiar phrase, “The medium is the message.” It means that the nature of the channel through which a message is transmitted can become more important than the meaning or content of the message itself.
With all due respect, this can and often does happen with sacraments.
What is a sacrament? The word is rooted in a Latin translation of the Greek word for mystery, in the original sense of something secret and beyond our full understanding or comprehension.
Take, for instance, the sacrament of Baptism. The rite of baptism historically was fundamentally an initiation ceremony for new Christians. A Christian is someone who has chosen to embrace and live by the teachings of Jesus in union with others of similar commitment (i.e. the Church).
Once the person has decided to make this new life commitment, he or she is welcomed into the Christian community by participating in a ceremonial washing and anointing ritual.
The washing, originally a complete immersion in water, was a public sign of cleansing away an old style of life and emerging into a new one, a “rebirth”.
The anointing with oil evoked being consecrated, publicly and permanently, to a new role in life as a follower of Jesus—and being spiritually strengthened for the challenges of this new life like the athlete anointed before the competition.
But, gradually, gradually the ceremony itself began to overshadow the important life decision and commitment that necessarily preceded it and was celebrated by it. In fact, with the development of infant baptism, the subject of the ceremony did not yet even have the capacity of making a life choice.
Once Baptism came to be seen as necessary for salvation, a very short form of the essential part of the ceremony was used for infants in danger of death—and even for dying adults beyond the possibility of making coherent personal choices.
The medium—the sacramental rite—in some sense became more important than the message—the personal, adult commitment to follow Jesus which the rite celebrated. In fact, it almost became magical in that the correct pouring of water and saying of words themselves were believed to achieve grace and salvation—and were seen as necessary for it.
Take, for another instance, the sacrament of Holy Orders. Fundamentally the rite of ordination is a commissioning ceremony for various ranks of church officers.
It presumes that the participant has discerned and is responding to a call from God and also has been judged qualified and acceptable for special office by the Church—in the sense, once, of the whole Christian community but, now, of only the ordaining bishop and the authorities who recommend the candidate to him.
But, again, gradually the ceremony itself began to overshadow the important life decision, assessments, and commitment that necessarily preceded it and was celebrated by it.
Again, the medium—the rite—was becoming more important than the message. It, too, almost became magical in that ordination itself was conceived as mystically changing and empowering the candidate, even regardless of his qualifications or lack thereof.
26 May 2019