Baptism as Hero’s Journey
A plunge into the abyss for the ultimate treasure.
Baptism is a hero’s journey.
Joseph Campbell, who popularized “the hero’s journey,” characterized it as “the one great story of mankind” and dubbed it “the monomyth.” According to Campbell, the hero’s journey can be found, not just in narratives, but in dreams and rituals.
As a sacred rite of passage, baptism is a hero story: a story not told and heard, but acted out.
Campbell subdivided the hero’s journey into three “great stages”:
Departure
Initiation
Return
In the “departure” (or “separation”) stage, the normal life of the hero-to-be is disturbed by a “call to adventure.” He who answers that call departs from his old familiar haunts and separates from his community—the domain of the known—to venture forth into a realm of mystery and wonder—the domain of the unknown.
In the case of Christian baptism, the departure stage begins when the person to be baptized feels called to repent and accept Jesus as his lord and savior. And it culminates when he takes the plunge into the baptismal water (into the abyss, as it were): water being an archetypal symbol for the unknown.
Whereas the departure is a transitional stage from the known to the unknown, the “initiation” stage is the time actually spent in the domain of the unknown. During that sojourn in uncharted territory, the hero runs a gauntlet: what Campbell calls a “Road of Trials.” That ordeal is a crucible in which the hero is purged of weaknesses—including lingering attachments to now-obsolete ways of life—and forges new strengths—including newfound dedication to a higher purpose. In this way, the ordeal ends the hero’s previous station in life and inaugurates a new, higher station. Thus, the initiation is also a termination. It is an experience so transformative for the heroic initiate that it is tantamount to death and rebirth: death to the past, rebirth to the future.
In Christian baptism, the initiation stage is the time spent immersed in the baptismal water. The initiate experiences a ritual drowning as the taint of sin—the subservience to unintegrated carnal impulses that characterized his life up to that point—is washed away. But the water that drowns is also the water that quenches thirst and replenishes. The descent into the abyss brings not only death, but new life. The tomb is also a womb, and the baptismal waters are also symbolic of the amniotic fluid that nourishes the unborn child. Dissolution is followed by a reconstitution for the infinitely better. Baptism is a rite of passage that ushers the recipient from one life to another. Upon dying to sin and self (or rather, a hampering misconception of self), the submerged initiate is reborn to salvation and eternal life in Christ. And the bodily baptism in physical water serves as a ritual aid to help the initiate accept his soul’s baptism in the Holy Spirit offered by Jesus.
The final great stage of the hero’s journey is “the return”: a transition from the unknown back to the known. The hero comes home transformed, bearing gifts from abroad to share with his family, his community, his civilization, in some cases with humanity as a whole. The treasure he found and won on his quest is a boon, not only for himself, but for his people. The hero then serves as a guide to others, pointing out the way and providing aid for a new generation of heroes as they undertake their own great quests. Arthur becomes Merlin. Frodo becomes Gandalf.
And the baptized becomes the baptist, or at least a facilitator of baptism. The initiate resurfaces from the baptismal waters born again. Now invested with salvation—the ultimate prize—the new Christian sets out to share that greatest of all treasures by modeling and sharing the gospel with others, thus fulfilling the “Great Commission” of Christ. Through that evangelism God delivers to “those with ears to hear” their own calls to adventure, inspiring them to take the plunge into their own hero’s journeys through baptism and into eternal life in Christ.
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