What does your Baptism mean to you? If, like me, you
actually remember being baptised it is bound to be an important
milestone in your life. But it doesn't really matter whether you
remember it or not, because baptism is not just about the actual
ceremony itself - important and vital though that is - but is also
about the life which flows from it.
Whether we remember being baptised or not, this sacrament has changed
us, made us a different person than we would otherwise have been, and
it has given a new dimension to our lives. If we do not remember ever
having been un-baptised, or if our baptism was many years ago, it is
perhaps difficult to appreciate this difference, but it is there all
the same.
Baptism gives us a new relationship to God: we are united to Christ in
his death and resurrection (Christened); we are cleansed from sin and
filled with his Spirit; He lives within us in a new way. But we also
become part of a great fellowship -the Church, the Body of Christ.We
are drawn into the community of the Holy Spirit.The Christian should
never really speak of 'going to church' - the gathering of Christians
for worship is rather a making visible of the community of the baptised
- the Church becoming visibly what it already spiritually is.
This month we have a wonderful opportunity to reflect upon what our
baptism means to us. On the Sunday after Epiphany we keep the feast of
the Baptism of Our Lord. In celebrating the moment when Jesus was
baptised by John in the River Jordan we are enabled to celebrate our
own baptism too.
Of course Our Lord didn't need to be baptised. He was the sinless Son
of God. It would seem that for Him Baptism meant identifying himself
with us in our sinfulness. In his baptism the Lord ' ... and as a
precaution against another was in a sense already taking on the sins of
the world, showing himself as the Lamb of God.lt was also, of course, a
way of marking the beginning of his ministry. The Gospels describe how
the Spirit descended on him as a dove and the voice proclaimed him to
be 'my beloved Son'. The baptism of Christ is celebrated in the
Epiphany season because at this moment he was revealed or shown forth
as the divine Son.
But as we reflect on the meaning of Our Lord's baptism, so we can give
thanks for our own.As sinful, imperfect human beings we did need
baptism. We give thanks that God brought us into a new and living
relationship with himself and that we were baptised 'in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit' - drawn into the
life of the Divine Godhead itself.
The celebration of the sacrament of Baptism is of course only the
beginning. Every Christian person has to respond to the grace of God
within, to make the commitment to live for Christ and for the
neighbour, if his or her baptism is to 'come alive'. Let's use the
Feast of the Baptism of the Lord to give thanks for our baptism and to
renew our
commitment as a New Year begins to live for Him.
So may I offer you all a truly happy and blessed 2013.
