In Front | The Passion of Jesus and Christian Baptism

In Paul’s letter to the Romans he writes to fellow believers: 

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 
Romans 6:4 (NIV)

In connection with New Testament passages like this, the ritual of baptism in early Christian communities was often modeled after the death and resurrection of Jesus as presented in the Gospel accounts.

An early Christian bishop, Gregory of Nyssa (AD 335-394) noted this correspondence: 

After three days of death He rose again… So too by plunging three times in water instead of earth, by entering and rising three times we imitate the grace of the resurrection on the third day.

A doctor of the Early Church, Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 315-386), made the connection more explicit in his Catechetical Lectures offered to new members of the church. He describes the ritual in detail, which was often undergone in a state of nudity for symbolic reasons. He begins: 

Having stripped, you were naked, in this also imitating Christ, who was naked on the cross… After this you were conducted to the sacred pool of divine Baptism, as Christ passed from the cross to the sepulcher you see before you… and then you dipped thrice under the water and thrice rose up again, therein mystically signifying Christ’s three days’ burial… For as our Savior passed three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth, so you by your first rising out of the water represented Christ’s first day in the earth, and by your descent the night… In the same moment you were dying and being born, and that saving water was at once your grave and your mother.

According to Dr. Robin M. Jensen, another doctor of the church, Ambrose of Milan (AD 340-397) “conceived of the font as a kind of coffin.” Jensen notes, “In fact, rare surviving fonts do look like coffins, including the oldest surviving one at Dura Europos, which has a rectangular tub large enough to accommodate a recumbent adult body.” As common as this design was, “Far more surviving fonts were cruciform-shaped, a design clearly meant to reinforce the idea that baptism was a participation in Christ’s passion.” 

In each case the connection is the same. The rite of Baptism is viewed as an act of association with the death and resurrection of Jesus. In this way the passion of Jesus became for the Early Church not only a focal point of veneration but also a central feature of the ritual life of Christian communities.

Sources: Cyril of Jerusalem, The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Vol. 2, 1970, pp. 161-167; Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings, 1961, p. 19; Robin M. Jensen, Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity: Ritual, Visual, and Theological Dimensions, 2012, p. 162.