FOURTH BEFORE ADVENT Year C 3 November 3013 (Baptism) I dont know how much attention any of you were paying to the first of our Bible readings this morning. To be honest, it was pretty dire: woe and destruction all round. God wasnt pleased with the hypocrisy of his people, piously offering their sacrifices, then going back to cheat and deceive in their everyday lives. Its a reading chosen to contrast with the story of Zacchaeus in our Gospel, who when he encounters Jesus turns his life around, promises to give away half of all he owns, and to repay anyone he has defrauded four times over. Of course, we all need to hear the warning about hypocrisy. What we do in church ought to make difference in our everyday lives. Our encounter with Jesus ought to transform us, making us generous and honest as it did Zacchaeus. But there was one little line in that reading that goes to the heart of what we do today: Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Because in an important sense, that is what baptism is about. Even the very word we use, baptise, comes to us from the Greek word meaning to wash. Because we live in a mucky world; a world alienated from God. Its as if at the very beginning of human creation there was a rupture between Gods plan for men and women, and our own selfishness. And that rupture has cast its dirt over everything, and we are all born into it. We only need to look into our own hearts and at our own desires to know how true that is. Its the reality to which the Church give the technical name, Original Sin. And we all need to be washed clean of it. And baptism is that washing. Once washed, we are free to enter into a new relationship with God, made possible by the birth, life, death and rising again of Jesus, Gods Son, whose perfect obedience cancelled out the effect of that original rupture. Were born again into a whole new world, where that rupture need no longer have any hold on us. And thats what Chloe receives this morning as she is baptised, so that she can begin her life reborn through Jesus and in relationship with God. Of course, that doesnt mean its all plain sailing from here on. She, like us, will need to work at living that new life God calls us to, after the pattern of Jesus. She will need the help of Nick and Loran, of her godparents Darren and Hailey, and of the whole Christian community. She will need our example, and she will need our prayers, which we promise today she will have. And as she grows she will need the help and strength that comes from regular prayer and worship and, in due course, Confirmation and Communion. And those who present her promise she will have those too. Because we want Chloe to be transformed by Jesus, generous and honest, doing good, seeking justice, defending those in need, free from all that would make her less than God wants her to be … to echo some other words from that first reading. Our other Bible reading was from one of the letters of Saint Paul, which make up a large part of the Bibles New Testament. Hes writing to encourage the Christian community in Thessalonika. But Pauls words to him are just as appropriately addressed to Chloe today; and I think we can see them as our promise to her, as she is washed and reborn in Baptism: To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. To which I hope we can all say, Amen!
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 16:30:28 +0000
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