SERMON PREACHED at HOLY TRINITY,
RINGWOOD EAST
ORDINARY SUNDAY 21
(August 28th) 1989
(incorporating baptism of Joshua)
READINGS
Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-15 [16-19]
Luke 11:1-13
Baptism. There are few if any
things that are agreed on by the whole Christian community, but one that we
come close to agreement on is baptism. We, as Christians, argue as to when it
should be done, and we argue as to how it should be done, but we are in
relative agreement that it should be done.
At a time when some, perhaps many,
Anglicans are moving towards a belief that only adult, believing Christians
should be baptised I want to make it quite clear that I believe the opposite. I
believe that, in the New Testament, when whole households were baptised,
children were amongst them. And I believe that it is imperative that we baptise
children not out of some superstitious belief that if some tragedy befalls them
God will have no place for them, but because they are so young and unaware the
rite signifies what it is to become a part of God’s Kingdom of love and mercy.
Let me explain. The argument for
baptising only those who are adult, believing Christians, is that only they can
fully understand the significance of the step they are taking. Joshua today will
have no real conception of what is happening to him. He will know only that an
unfamiliar person has taken him and has for no apparent reason washed his head.
Yet I believe that is precisely
why we should baptise infants. Those too young to know what is happening to
them. For if we say we have to have an intellectual grasp of all that Jesus has
done for us, then the gospel is not gospel, is not good news. If we must grasp
God first with our intellect then God is not good news for children, not good
news for the intellectually handicapped, not good news for those who happen to
meet Mormon missionaries before they meet Christian missionaries. It is not
even good news for you or me, for there is no way that we can grasp or
understand the significance of Easter – any more than Joshua. It is to those
who believe as children – those who accept but do not even attempt wholly to
unravel the mystery – that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs.
What we do with our belief is
another matter. We may seek to explore and deepen our knowledge of God
intellectually, as well as emotionally and physically – but that is another
matter. For Joshua that decision will come later.
What are we doing then, when we
baptise? Baptism is not a naming ceremony. Joshua has a name already, although
by naming him again in this context of baptism we are expressing, as it were, God’s
approval of his name.
Baptism is a symbolic death, burial
and resurrection. It is a symbolic re-entry to the womb. The font water becomes
a symbol of the waters of which we are born. Birth itself is a death experience
– passing from the comfort and security of the womb into the cold and noise of
the outside world, our world. The font waters become also a symbol of death –
the waters of death, the tomb of death into which Christ descends on Good
Friday, and to which we all descend in our death.
In emerging from that tomb-womb we
symbolise the mysterious Christian hope of the resurrection of the body, the
experience of Easter. We symbolise even more than merely the immortality of the
soul, a Pagan doctrine, for we symbolise God’s love of his creation, God’s love
of our bodies in all their functions, God’s desire to create and then to
recreate our bodies in the glory of his future Kingdom.
In the end today we are offering
it to Joshua no more than a symbol. We are offering to him the symbol of hope –
of the hope that our life is not all. We are offering him the symbol of
grafting, of being grafted on to the death and resurrection of Christ. We are
offering him the responsibility to make of his life something of a symbol of
Christ, a sign and reminder to the world of the hope for all people that is in
Christ.
In the end we cannot understand.
We can understand no more than Joshua. What we are doing today is a mystery.
The Lord be with you.
