Topic: Baptism

There is no neat finish to the Jesus story, because it is far from over. The risen Jesus is always ahead of us, calling us to follow and live the next chapter.

Our longing for God is met in the Holy Spirit who opens heaven to us and makes all things new.

Baptism is to the Christian life as a wedding is to the married life – an ongoing symbol of the vowed and relational life in God.

Baptism is a magnificent gift, far surpassing anything we could imagine or devise, for ultimately it is God’s chosen means of self giving to us.

We shall be ourselves when we are able to surrender ourselves to Christ and say ‘not my will, but yours’.

The ‘death of the self’ in baptism, modelled in Jesus, enables us to live openly and generously instead of fearfully and defensively.

Belonging to God does not exempt us from disasters that may come, although that is often what people hope and expect, but it does mean that they will not have the last word on us.

John calls us beyond insurance policy religion, but Jesus calls us still further into participation in God’s radical generosity to all the world.

With Jesus we are baptised into a Spirit-inspired costly life of living the new culture of scandalous reconciliation.

United with Christ in baptism we cross the threshold from death to life, and in Eucharist we continue to touch the scars which nourish our faith and inspire our worship.

Faith in the risen Christ is always a physical thing, experienced and expressed in physical ways.

In Baptism, Christ has united us with himself in his death to sin and his resurrection to radically new life.