Baptism - Easter 5

Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.”

(1 Peter 2.2)

Well I’m sorry if you had hoped for the end of the world last night at 6pm. Although I did wait to prepare my sermon till after 6pm - you wouldn’t want to waste all that preparation would you.

I sent a brief facebook message of consolation to the American Baptist, Harold Camping, who predicted with such certainty that yesterday would be Doomsday.

It just said, ‘Never mind Harold. It’s not the end of the world.’

Not all American Baptists are like Harold.

My first baptism in an American Southern Baptist church was a revelation. No unseemly dunking and splashing for them, like English Baptists. The candidate held a cloth over their nose and mouth and was very gracefully and slowly eased back under the water as the lights dimmed and the organ played seraphic music.

The pastor of the church explained to me that, as baptism represented being buried with Christ, it was more appropriate to lower the candidate lovingly into the water, the grave, rather than to follow the English Baptists who appeared to throw them into it.

Of course babies were baptised by total immersion for many centuries in the worldwide church and still are in some parts of the church.

The normal procedure in the Book of Common Prayer, given in the rubric says:

(If [the parents] shall certify the priest that the Child may well endure it), he shall dip it in the water discreetly and warily… But if they certify that the child is weak, it shall suffice to pour water upon it…

Well baby Cyr may be strong as an ox, but Fr Alan will be pouring and not dipping.

Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that baptism by immersion is a very dramatic re-enactment of the heart of our Christian faith.

The NT imagery of Baptism is of dying and rising in Christ; of being buried with him in death and reborn to a new life in his resurrection. This is why the language of the baptismal liturgy is so stark and uncompromising: ‘Do you reject? Do you turn? Darkness and light.’

Or in the words of 1 Peter which we read earlier and which were always read at early Christian baptisms:

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (I Peter 2.10)

And this is why traditionally we baptize during this Easter season in which we celebrate new life springing from the death of Good Friday; from the cold hard winter; from the empty tomb.

Baptism is also symbolic of the new life we dare to hope for, when, one day, we each pass through the uncertain waters of our own death.

Of course Stephen Hawkins, the physicist, caused a stir last week when he likened the human brain to a computer and added:

There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

In today’s Gospel, Thomas wrestles with this. How can anyone know what comes after death? How can we know where you’re going Jesus? (John 14.5)

Now I admire Stephen Hawkins at lots of levels and enjoy his writings. But please, don’t patronise millions of us by saying the afterlife ‘is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.’

Say ‘I think it is a fairy story…’ by all means, but you don’t know Stephen, any more than Thomas the apostle did. You’re a scientist Stephen. You can’t prove it’s a fairy story any more than I can prove it’s true.

Whatever else we do or don’t believe in Christianity; however many doubts we have - and some of us are plagued by more of them than others –

This one, central, historical fact is more important than any other.

It is the crux of Christianity, and if it is true, it is the crux of human history – God raised Jesus from the dead, in a resurrection body.

The witness of Christian history is that it wasn’t just a ‘nice idea’ or a ‘fairy story’ that the disciples dreamed up because they were ‘afraid of the dark’.

If it was, then I think they would have abandoned it when they were faced with torture and death, as most of them were. Stephen, the first martyr that we read about in Acts earlier, might have decided not to have died horribly for a fairy story. It’s not proof, but it’s part of the evidence.

I’m with my brothers and sisters down through the centuries, who although they were often wracked with doubt, nevertheless chose to believe. If I didn’t believe – well I’d have better things to do with my time.

And as Jesus says to Thomas later in our Gospel, ‘happy are those who have not seen [what you have seen, Thomas] and yet believe” – that’s us!

But of course baptism is only a first step along the road to spiritual maturity.

Peter reminds us in this letter, that just as babies quite naturally crave for their mother’s milk, so we should continue to long for spiritual nourishment throughout our lives.

It’s nourishing our faith, not re-enforcing the fairy tale, which deepens our appreciation of life; and strengthens our hope that the love we enjoy within our family here today is something that endures beyond death.

We have all been given the gift of new life in our baptism. Do we pursue this spiritual life and feed it with these other sacraments of bread and wine? Or do we starve our spiritual life, until it simply withers away to religious sentimentality – a fairy tale?

Baptism is a reminder to all of us of our baptismal vows. It is a reminder that if we wish to live life fully, then we must live by the power of the risen Jesus and in loving, daily dependence upon him.

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.”

(1 Peter 2.2)