A message to Shiloh Inwood United Church on April 16 2023 as we celebrated baptism
Scripture: 1 Peter 1: 1-9
The congregation celebrates that, today, we get to baptize two of our children. We celebrate that we get to proclaim God’s love and grace and claim upon their lives.
We celebrate also because, at every baptism, we get to remember who we are and whose we are and to whom we belong.
At the end of the service we shall sing a song that, even though it is based on verses from the First Testament (Isaiah 55) , sounds very much like a baptismal song. It is part of a message from the prophet Isaiah to God’s people who were living in exile in Babylon.
“I have called you by your name; you are mine.
I have gifted you and call you now to shine.
I will not abandon you; all my promises are true.
You are gifted, called and chosen; you are mine.”
(I Have Called You By Your Name, Daniel Charles Damon, 1995, (C) 1995 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188.)
That’s who we are. We are a community that has been chosen by God to shine the glory of his love and faithfulness and grace in the world. We remind ourselves of that at every baptism because we live in a culture that works very hard at making us forget. When we forget, we lose our way. So, today, we remember.
Throughout your life, other people, other groups, other forces will try to tell you who you are. They will try to define for you what your life should be. They will tell you, “You are a success when you have a great job or lots of money; you are worthy of being loved when you are beautiful or famous; your life counts when you are healthy and productive and can get for yourself whatever you want or desire.”
Did you notice that the identity which the Church gives you at your baptism doesn’t have any of those conditions? You are a “child of God; a disciple of Christ; a member of the Church.” You are “gifted, called and chosen, you are God’s.”
Who you are is a gift of a good and gracious God who has wonderful plans for your life. This God will be at work unceasingly to draw you deeper and deeper into God’s great and creative love and life. It is all gift. You get to live into that gift for the rest of your life. You get to be part of a community that is learning to grow into who we are declared to be on the day of our baptism. That is the heart, the core, of your identity. You may not always feel that way. You may not always act that way but, because it is God’s gift to you, not something you earn, it is the unshakeable truth about you.
“Through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead”, said Peter in today’s scripture reading, “you have received this inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade.”
Mathin Luther was one of the reformers of the Church in the sixteenth century. He challenged the corruption of the institutional church, calling them to greater faithfulness to who they really were. The institutional church did not appreciate being called out, so he was often in trouble. Because he was often in trouble, he was often troubled. He would have bouts of anxiety and fearfulness; he struggled with many doubts. It is said that, in the midst of those episodes, he would trace the sign of the cross on his forehead and say, “Remember, Martin, you are a baptized person.” Whatever else was happening, whatever worries or troubles he was having, he was a child of God, claimed by the risen Christ as Christ’s own, gifted with God’s Holy Spirit, beloved member of Jesus’ family. That is who he was. The identity that had been given to him in his baptism could not perish or spoil or fade.
That identity cannot perish or spoil or fade but it is so rich, so deep, so challenging, that it takes a lifetime for any of us to grow into it. It was a custom in the early Church to have a candidate for baptism take off the clothes they usually wore and put on a new gown. The Church said to them, “You are now a member of a community that has ‘put on Christ’. You are now clothed with the goodness and grace and love and truth of Jesus your Saviour.” Every day, you get to put on your new gown. You get to see how you are doing in growing into its largeness, its grace, its truth about you.
Baptism is the beginning of a life of learning to be who God has declared you are. The promise is that, as those identities shape the way you live in the world, you will find a life that is worth living, a life in which you have been given holy work to do. Through your baptism, God gives you some task that is worthy of your commitment and devotion, your time and your energy.
In baptism, God claims us for a high and holy purpose. Peter describes Christians as those who have been “chosen and destined by God the Father”. We have been made holy — set apart – by the Holy Spirit. We have been given a new birth into a living hope.
Baptism is the Church’s act of resistance against the hopelessness and despair and cynicism that is so rampant in our culture. It is our act of resistance against the aimlessness and the lostness that diminishes and destroys so many lives these days.
What we have done here today reminds us that we, too, have been claimed for a high and holy purpose. We need reminding because the life of faith is neither safe nor easy.
We get to join in God’s work as God is overcoming the power of evil; as God is transforming the brokenness; as God is healing the wounds. That’s the promise of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus has gone to the deepest depths and done battle with the power of evil and he has won the victory over it. God raised Jesus to new life and so we inherit the promise that no evil can overwhelm the good that God intends for God’s creation.
The work God is doing in the world is also happening in our spirits. God is refining them, says Peter. God is making us stronger, purer, more able to bear the glory of God. In all that happens, God is moving us deeper and deeper into trusting this God who has claimed us as God’s own. In all that happens, even when you can’t not see it or understand how, you are being protected by the power of God. You are being rescued and redeemed and made holy.
One writer put it this way, “I have faith. I lose faith. I find faith again, or faith finds me, but through it all, I am grasped by the [hope] that it is all true: I am in good hands; . . . [love is the wide net spread beneath the most dangerous of my days]; God will have the last word”. (Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, p. 10)
Henry and Lucy, through your baptism, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, you have been given a glorious life. God has given you good work to do through your life. You get to shine the light of Christ’s love and grace and truth and power into a world that yearns for all of that.
Your journey has just begun into a living hope. Today, you were baptized into a marvellous adventure that will make your life holy, a blessing to others, a life worth living. Your journey has just begun into the joyful destiny of deep friendship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Thanks be to God who has given you to us to share this journey together.
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