170108-fr-ian-crooks

Fr Ian Crooks 8 January 2017 Isaiah 42.1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10.34-43, Matthew 3.13-17 Revisions of dictionaries are constantly adding new words to our vocabulary and deleting others: and in some cases the meaning of words change over time. For example, I used to understand the meaning of device, application, notebook, icon, cloud: nowadays I concede other meanings have to be accommodated. Not so long ago it was blackberry, which I thought was something nasty behind the tool shed! Then there are words like perfect, awesome, absolutely, totally, which are used for having the correct change for something I’ve bought, to approval or agreement. But I rather object to my name or details being grabbed – and Margaret and I do not answer to being called ‘guys’. Not surprisingly, on more than one occasion, I’ve been called ‘a cranky old man,’ and on some occasions I am happy to wear such a label as a badge of honour.

It is said that language and our use of it, defines us, together with our morality and our beliefs and that is true both a personal level and of our society in general. However there is one word about which we much never compromise. And that word is baptism – a word rich and deep in meaning. It’s popular and shallow alternative – christening – is not only unbiblical, it is also non-liturgical; it does not appear in any of our prayer books. It may well be appropriate for launching shops and for the naming of bells, but it is totally deficient in describing the Christian rite of initiation: this rite of passage from darkness to light, on the path to eternity. We the Church make incredible claims about baptism: that in being baptised we share in Christians’ victory over death and incorporated ingot the life of Christians we are taken up into the very life of God – a new life which we then strive to live out within a society founded on Christian values, but which are largely no longer acknowledged or adhered to, and in reality are being squeezed out of our cultural heritage.

In the course of my ministry, including holiday visits to other churches, I have experienced some wonderful and moving baptismal celebration, as well as some appalling ones. None so appalling however was a mass baptism conducted by a bishop in the early 19th century near St Petersburg: “when a baby slipped from the Bishop’s hands and disappeared into the freezing waters of the river Neva, he just shouted, ‘give me another one,’ and carried on.’

In stark contrast, John Westerhoff, an Episcopalian priest/education recalled at a GBRE conference in 1980, a visit he made to a village in South America. He attended mass on the Sunday morning and witnessed a baptism like no other: the infant was bought to the font in an open coffin, the baby clothes were removed, and the priest immersed the naked baby in the waters of the large font three times, in the of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and with the oils of anointing marking him with the sign of the cross saying, ‘I baptise you Pablo Manuel Christian,’ and then the baby was clothed in a baptismal rode as the congregation shouted ‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’

‘That was baptism,’ said Westerhoff, ‘and it’s hard for those of us in a more restrained culture to plunge the depths of its symbolism, when we just sprinkle a little water.’ We suffer from suffocating the symbols of Baptism with words. Yet the only words that are recorded from our Lord’s baptism are definitive: ‘this is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3.17).

In view of theology and the tradition surrounding our Lord’s linage – his DNA as it was – that is a remarkable pronouncement given the religious and culture of the day and by offering Himself for baptism, our Lord signals a desire and commitment to a new focus, a new purpose, a new meaning to His life.

And so it is with us, as sons and daughters of God called by our names. In such a calling we begin, as Timothy Radcliffe says, ‘we begin our conversation with God, which will transform us in ways that we cannot anticipate.’

Just as Jesus left his family, the town where he grew up, forsook marriage, and thereby rejected his religious duty to his ancestors and signalling, by being baptised by john, He inaugurated a new perspective, a new basis for our understanding our relationship with God, and with one another: a relationship of love not fear, or grace not guilt, of mercy not judgement, of equality.

By letting go of his family ties, He embraced the whole family of humanity, ‘with a love that… overflowed any limits’ says Radcliffe. Through our Lord’s baptism God is telling us, that each of us, all of us, the whole of humanity are beloved sons and daughters of God. When we personally discover that, we then realise that ‘we have new eyes,’ writes Henri Nouwwen, to see the belovedness of other people,’ as our Lord sees them.

The spirit that hovered gently over Jesus was same spirit that brooded over the face of the deep: but this time signifying that in Christ there is a new creation, a new Adam, a new humanity, a new way to live. On the day after Boxing Day, the Fairfax press splashed on its front page, almost a full page picture of the competing yachts in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, surging through the heads, heading for the Tasman Sea. Its caption was ‘Into the Deep.’ It is a most appropriate description of the ministry that flowed from our Lord’s baptism. Putting aside the differences in the theological fine print, its gives meaning to our baptism as well, as we find ourselves immersed in the sea of life: and its presents us with a choice. Are we content to splash about in the shallows, being sprinkled with a little bit of Christianity, or are we willing to let ourselves be drawn into the deep and stand with our Lord with all that is good in this world – and against all that is evil and unjust and inhumane? For, wherever we are on the spiritual journey, whatever our commitment is we are all beginners, and the depth of our Lord and our Lord’s vision for humanity is calling for us.