The First Sunday after The Epiphany

It was my first baptism ‘up close’. New parents, first child (5 weeks old), all stressed partly because the baby had decided that his special baptismal gown was something that he should make a mess of with something his nappy couldn’t contain and so after a quick bath and change into ‘everyday’ gear and a rather fast trip to the church, they were standing at the font. The Baptismal liturgy has three components – the Word of God about Baptism and God’s promises to the baptised – the Confession of Faith and the Baptism itself – and then the Thanksgiving and Prayers and Welcome into God’s family. It was when the mother lowered the baby over the font that the script suddenly changed. The baby turned his head to the side and vomited right into the font! The mother and godparents gasped. The congregation heard something and were more alert. The father laughed. And the pastor didn’t miss a beat but scooped up water and proceeded with the Baptism! He was smiling with the “it’s ok” written all across his face. At the end of the ceremony when handing the parents the certificate he said to them quietly – but his radio mic picked it up for everyone – “you know, I’ve never seen the ‘old Adam’ come out like that before!”.

As the father of a new born in my first year at seminary, I learnt a lot that day – and subsequently – from a wise and kind pastor. Baptism is so central in our understanding of Christianity because it is the moment when a person is joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Baptism is a powerful act of God where a person is adopted into God’s family; receives a new identity; and is given freely gifts of forgiveness, salvation, eternal life, saving faith together with the Holy Spirit. This is all God’s action. We are recipients of God’s grace – and a person can receive God’s gifts at any age – hence our phrase that ‘we baptise infants as adults and adults as infants’. My ministry as an ordained pastor can be described in baptismal terms – I am always leading people to Baptism or people back to Baptism – because Baptism is that event when the Triune God declares that everything in Scripture leading to Jesus and everything Jesus said and did and does is FOR YOU and God creates what he says and so the baptised is a ‘new creation in Christ’.

However what Baptism is and declares about God is one thing – wonderful news indeed. It is what Baptism declares about humanity – especially when looking at an infant – that the world simply rejects, scoffs at, finds dangerous to mental health even, or irrational and so wants to minimise the need for Baptism and emphasise our participation in Baptism. We live our life from our perspective – it’s the only way we can – and so our experiences and reason are our default position to anything – our relationships, our own health, what is happening in the world. But Jesus and God’s Word presents a different perspective – one about us personally, about humanity, about meaning and purpose – and this perspective doesn’t paint us in the light we’d prefer. Before God we discover that human beings are blind to reality, enemies of God, and dead in our sins. The blind might be cured or just have more light. The enemies might reconcile and be friends. But the dead … even our experience tells us is beyond us. The story of Jesus is God’s fulfilment of his plan to bring human beings into his light so that they can see reality; it is the message that God always wants reconciliation and has gone to incredible lengths to make it possible; that God has defeated the powers of sin, death, and the devil to have any final say over us; and that he brings life from death and gives a new birth – we’re ‘born again’ – so that people – YOU! – can live with God your life that has faith, hope, and love like nothing on this Earth!

Jesus and Baptism don’t denigrate human beings at all – each person is unique and special and precious to God. What Jesus and Baptism declare is how precious YOU are to God. You with all your ups and down, you with all your successes and shames and in Baptism you have a new birth to a life with God. And in living that life we discover that Baptism is a daily ‘something’ we can return to – as we return to God’s Word – Jesus and Scripture – to keep God’s perspective before us and to grow in the experiences of following Jesus. In the struggles of living there is no better comfort or support or life to be lived than with Jesus – and in your Baptism, God says, “Indeed, I’ve done all this FOR YOU!”.

GS