Whaley Bridge Parish
Jan 9th 2022
Baptism of Christ
Our friends Kit and Matt decided they wanted to be baptised when they were teenagers. Not in church they decided, but at Slippery Stones on the River Derwent, a favourite swimming spot. Their Methodist minister Sue was a friend of mine too and asked me to help. We left the cars and walked up the last mile or so, stopping on the path to pray – Sue had chosen the “I am” sayings of Jesus to punctuate our journey. When it came to the baptism the boys took it in turn to fall backwards into the water, and Sue and I hoisted them back up. I can still remember the splashiness and the weight of the teenage lads in our arms, the sense of a moment somehow outside time.
A German Minister who I met told me about the baptism festival – “Taufefest” – which his group of churches holds every year in the Rhein. Hundreds of people come along, bring a picnic and make a day of it on the riverbank. Adults are baptised by immersion and babies and young children by pouring river water on their heads. Over the years it’s become increasingly popular, with more people taking an interest in being baptised for themselves.
Baptism is about receiving grace and following Christ, and as such it takes us to the heart of the faith, to the heart of what it means to be Christ’s church. In our ministry in the church baptism can easily become marginal to the experience of the church community, and it is sad when this happens – because it is to the spiritual detriment of everyone, both to the church community itself, and to those who come for baptism.
This week and next I plan to reflect on our experience of baptism. This week we will think about how we practice baptism in Whaley Bridge Parish, and next week we will reflect for ourselves on our own baptism and what it means for us now.
And the reason for doing so is that on this second Sunday in Epiphany we remember the Baptism of Jesus by John. Epiphany means revealing, and all four gospels agree that it is this moment of going down into the waters of the Jordan that marks a turning point that marks the beginning of Jesús ministry.
Despite the birth stories of Luke and Matthew which we major on at Christmas, all four gospels agree on the fact that Jesus grew up in obscurity. He reached adulthood – roughly the age of thirty – without his life being marked out as different or remarkable. It is now that he joins the crowds queueing up to be baptised that marks the real beginning of his ministry, that he receives his vocation as God’s beloved Son.
Steve preached for us before Christmas about John the Baptist’s fierce call to repentance, to let go of our sins and our past and let God change us. John’s baptism is a baptism of repentance, of turning our life around. So why does Jesus join in? If he is God’s beloved Son, what sins does he need to repent of? Does Jesus need to be forgiven and change his ways?
Well, no - but by going down into the waters Jesus is showing us what God is like – not high and mighty, towering in judgement above us. God’s not like that. Jesus shows us that God comes down to our level and goes through what we go through. Paul writes about this in his letter to the Corinthians. He says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin.” Jesus is God coming to be where we are and getting his hands dirty in the process. That’s why he goes down into the waters of baptism – because he completely identifies with us in all our frail and mixed up humanity.
We heard in the gospel “When Jesus had been baptised and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven “You are my son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” The power of the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus and he is filled with the knowledge of being God’s beloved. And then his Galilean ministry begins and there is no stopping him from living out the love of God in the power of the Spirit.
At the baptism service it is traditional to use the text of Jesus welcoming the children. Beautiful though this story is, I often use the baptism of Jesus as my text I always want to say, these words are for you. God is saying that you Alice, you Benjamin, you are God’s beloved child, and he is very pleased with you.
So baptism marks the beginning of Jesus’s ministry and in Matthew’s Gospel, baptism in the theme of the last words of the Risen Jesus s to his friends. “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” In the Acts of the Apostles we read about the how individuals and households are baptised after Pentecost, and how the laying on of hands of baptism goes with the presence of the Spirit. And as early as the second century, the practice of baptising babies and children began – which is how most Church of England baptisms happen today.
So why do that? What’s the point of baptising a child who doesn’t yet know if she wants to be a Christian or not? The reason that the Anglican church continues to baptise children – before they are old enough to make a commitment for themselves – is because of what we know of the grace of God.
It is the amazing grace of God to us in Jesus that finds us and saves us. We believe God does not wait until we are able to respond by putting our faith into words that make sense. In Jesus the grace of God has dawned upon the world, as Paul writes to Titus. That dawning of grace extends its light to the babblings of a baby just as much as to the brilliant arguments of a learned theologian. Baptism is a reminder to us how wide and deep and all-encompassing the grace of God really is.
At our baptism by grace we become part of God’s people the church, part of the family of faith. In our parish my prayer is that we will regularly have baptism services that are joyful celebrations on our main Sunday slot – such as the baptism of Georgia in November. The art of adapting our worship so that it is accessible to people who don’t usually go to church – short, warm, genuinely welcoming. Holy Communion services are much too long and quite unsuitable for this purpose. I know that you had a baptism at Messy Church a few years ago – which is a great idea and certainly something to repeat. We should have had the baptism of Walter in our main service next Sunday, though this has been postponed for Covid reasons.
Of course, we will continue to offer services at other times where this suits families better – we need to show flexibility and meet families halfway. We are so fortunate that Sue does pastoral work with baptism families and that our clothes swap ministry and the Carers and Toddlers Praise group offers a space to meet up with families who have been baptised and keep that relationship going.
In the baptism service those present are asked to commit to support the child in his or her journey of faith and to help her live and grow within God’s family. That is very much a commitment for the local parish church, and it is good to ask ourselves to what extent we are in reality fulfilling that commitment by uur prayer and our action. A challenge for us!
Words of the prophet Isaiah:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
This is God’s promise to all his people
I invite you to pray our prayer for today again, and to pray it not just for yourself but for those children in Whaley Bridge who will come for baptism this year.
Heavenly Father
At the Jordan your revealed Jesus as your son.
May we recognise him as our Lord and know ourselves to be your beloved children
Through Jesus Christ our Saviour
Amen