Easter 7 at St John's College Cambridge

Evensong series: "Reflections on the resurrection - Known in the breaking of bread."

Readings: Genesis 32:22-31; Luke 24 vv. 13-35

You can listen to this sermon here.

“Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight.” Luke 24.31

It was GK Chesterton who declared in a particularly xenophobic moment: “There is nothing like travel for narrowing the mind!”

Well although I know what he means, I got back yesterday from travelling round the world for a month, meeting exotic new people and preaching at them. It’s what retired Vicars do.

Needless to say it was enriching in so many ways, with new friendships, new ways of exploring faith, and unforgettable moments:

Celebrating mass in the cool early morning by the pool in a villa in Bali where we met to celebrate a fellow priest’s 50th birthday;

Stealing the blow-up unicorn from the villa next door at 2 in the morning;

The Christian commune on a farm outside of Melbourne Australia;

Sharing in the Annual Spam Festival in Honolulu!

Travelling can be life changing.

So in the Gospel reading, it’s Easter Sunday afternoon.

It’s been a traumatic three days for these two disciples of Christ, Cleopas and perhaps his wife Mary or his son Simeon. We don’t know. (Cf John 19.25)

They are despondent, confused, disappointed and exhausted as they set out on the two-hour walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, hoping to arrive home before nightfall at about 7.

A stranger joins them on the dangerous road - there’s safety in numbers – nothing too surprising there – except that like Mary in the Garden earlier that day, they don’t recognise Jesus.

And he seems to be the only person in Jerusalem who knows nothing of the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the rumours which flew about this morning that some women had found the tomb of Jesus empty with angels telling them he was alive. So Jesus gives them a Bible study for an hour or two. He explains to them what Scripture says about the Messiah – about himself.

But they still don’t get it.

At last they reach Emmaus and Jesus looks as if he’s travelling on beyond the village. Cleopas and Mary are unwilling to see this stranger go off into the dangerous night and press him to stay for supper and sleep on the couch.

And then there’s the famous revelation; the subject of a thousand paintings, of sculptures and stained-glass windows and the wonderful Caravaggio in the National Gallery.

“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, and he vanished from their sight.” (Luke 24.30f)

They met with the risen Jesus at the end of journey, in the breaking of bread. (Luke 24.35)

The breaking of the word, his explanation of the Scriptures, had not been enough. They had not understood it until his actions took them back to the scene in the upper room on that Thursday three days ago – his Last Supper. It had been the only topic of conversation for them and all the other followers since his death on Friday.

For many people, doctrine and dogma and rationality and Bible verses are not enough. Indeed, they sometimes obscure the presence of Jesus. He is not recognised in them.

It is in the mystery of the Breaking of Bread, the Eucharist, the mass, that he is both recognised and disappears from our sight: the hiddenness of God; the Cloud of Unknowing; the believing and seeing and hoping; yet doubting and wondering where God is, and why he seems so silent.

No wonder Christ said “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed!” (John 20.29)

In many Christian traditions, we know that liturgy and music, art and symbols can take us beyond words to an encounter with the risen Christ, unrecognised and then recognised.

In the mysterious story of Jacob travelling, with his family, staying behind on his own by the brook, wrestling with a stranger, or with the incarnate God, with the eternal Christ – Jacob begins to recognise who this clinging stranger is, and now he’s recognised him he won’t let go – but Christ wounds him with a wound of love, changes his life, Jacob becomes Israel – and doesn’t that resonate down through the centuries and the last 70 years – and then, the stranger disappears. 

The Emmaus story is about journeying, and those we meet along the way, and understanding what we have learned when we stop to break bread together. (Companions – com panis – those with whom we break bread.) Pilgrimage has always been a part of Christian formation and a part of the Christian narrative, as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales bear witness.

In 1931, CS Lewis was on a journey with his brother Warnie, travelling pillion on his motorcycle to Whipsnade zoo.

In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis related his final step into real joy, for his intellectual conversion two years earlier had been a miserable affair and he described himself as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” It was all words and reason that had brought him to conversion.

This is how he describes that journey that was to change his life and therefore the lives of many others: "I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo, I did."

That journey to Whipsnade Zoo was Lewis's Emmaus Road, his breaking of bread. Of course he would still have many periods of darkness and doubt through the rest of his life.

Early Christians were called the people of The Way.

Christ is not only the destination, he is the Way: he is the journey, and our unknown travelling companion, helping us to piece together all that happens to us as our life unfolds.

And sometimes, when we come to the eucharist, the breaking of bread; or evensong; or fall in love; or hold a new-born child; or go to the zoo on a motorbike; or memorably steal a unicorn…

…then this opening of our eyes helps us to look back on the ups and the downs of our life journey so far, and although we did not recognise the presence of Jesus with us at the time perhaps, we can now reflect more deeply on being surprised by joy, by the eternal presence of the risen Christ; even if, as is the way of life and faith, the moment soon passes.

“Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight.” Luke 24.31

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)

The Emmaus Road - Easter 3

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?” Luke 24.32

You know what it’s like. You’re invited out to supper and you gladly agree and put the date of the Friday night in your diary.

But when that Friday comes, you’re exhausted. It’s the end of a long week. You just want to get home, open a bottle of wine and settle down to watch Coronation Street and CSI and wake up half way through newsnight.

The last thing you feel like doing is dressing up and getting back on an overcrowded tube train again.

But, you can’t get to supper without making a journey.

So in today’s Gospel, it’s Easter Sunday afternoon. It’s been a traumatic three days for these two disciples of Christ, Cleopas, and perhaps his wife, Mary. (Cf John 19.25)

But they can’t get home for supper without making a journey.

They are despondent, confused, disappointed and exhausted as they set out on the two-hour walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, hoping to arrive home before nightfall at about 7.

A stranger joins them on the road – nothing too surprising there. There’s safety in numbers on a dangerous road.

But he must be the only person in Jerusalem who seems to know nothing of the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the rumours which flew about this morning that some women had found the tomb of Jesus empty with angels telling them he was alive. Clearly they were deluded and confused.

So Jesus gives them a Bible study for an hour or two. He explains to them what Scripture says about the Messiah – about himself.

But they still don’t get it.

At last they reach Emmaus and Jesus looks as if he’s travelling on beyond the village. Cleopas and Mary are unwilling to see this stranger go off into the dangerous night and press him to stay for supper and sleep on the couch.

And then there’s the famous revelation; the subject of a thousand paintings, of sculptures and stained glass windows and the Caravaggio on the front of today’s Service Sheet.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, and he disappeared from their sight. (Luke 24.30f)

They met with Jesus in the breaking of bread. (Luke 24.35)

The breaking of the word, his explanation of the Scriptures, had not been enough. They had not understood it until his actions took them back to the scene in the upper room on Thursday a few days ago – his Last Supper. They had been talking with the other disciples about it all since his death on Friday.

For many people, doctrine and dogma and Bible verses are not enough. Indeed, they sometimes obscure the presence of Jesus. He is not recognised in them.

It is in the mystery of the Breaking of Bread that he is both recognised and disappears from our sight: the hiddenness of God; the Cloud of Unknowing; the believing and seeing and hoping; yet doubting and wondering where God is and why he seems so silent.

In our Anglo-Catholic tradition, we know that liturgy and music and symbols take us beyond words.

I am afraid to admit that I knew Pavlova as a tooth-pulling, meringue dessert long before I knew she was a ballerina. She died far too young some 20 years before I was born.

After one of Anna Pavlova’s great performances, one of her admirers, who had been moved to tears, asked her what the dance meant.

Pavlova replied simply, but profoundly: “If I could have said it, I wouldn’t have had to dance it.”

Today’s Gospel is about journeying, and those we meet along the way, and understanding what we have learned when we stop for supper.

CS Lewis has always been a great inspiration to me in the intellectual pursuit of God, faith seeking understanding in Anselm’s memorable phrase.

In the year that Anna Pavlova died, 1931, CS Lewis was on a journey with his brother Warnie, travelling pillion on his motorcycle to Whipsnade zoo.

In a now famous passage of his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis related his final step into real joy, for his intellectual conversion two years earlier had been a miserable affair and he described himself as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

This is how he describes the journey that was to change his life:

I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.

That journey to Whipsnade Zoo was Lewis's Emmaus Road.

Writer Terry Lindvall, in a fascinating article Joy and Sehnsucht: The Laughter and Longings of C.S. Lewis, explains Lewis's conversion like this:

C.S. Lewis was drawn into the kingdom of God by joy - by a taste of this blessed fruit and divine gift. Joy was the divine carrot that persuaded such a self-proclaimed donkey as Lewis to plod down the road toward Jerusalem. It was the soft, disturbing kiss of God that unmade all of Lewis's world. Joy compelled Lewis toward the resurrection laughter of Easter…

Early Christians were called the people of The Way. Even the fact that you have travelled to church today is a symbol that our meeting and understanding of Christ is in travelling as well as arriving.

For Christ is not only the destination, but he is the Way, the journey and our travelling companion helping us to understand all that has happened to us along the winding path of our life.

And sometimes, when we come to this supper; this breaking of bread; this opening of our eyes; this mass; we look back on the ups and the downs of our life journey so far, and although we did not recognise the presence of Jesus with us at the time perhaps, we can now reflect with those early disciples:

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?” Luke 24.32

Thomas, Doubt, Easter 2

(Preached at St Paul's Kay Street, Washington DC, on Easter 2)

“See my hands... my side; stop doubting and believe.” John 20. 27

I’m going to tell you two stories today, and here’s the first one:

A man is walking down the road with a penguin. He meets a policeman and says: “I’ve found this penguin and I’m not sure what to do with it.” The policeman says: “Well take it to the zoo. It’s just across the road.”

The next day, the policeman bumps into the same man, still with the penguin. He says: “So what happened at the zoo yesterday?” The man says: “We had a lovely time thanks. We’re going to the cinema this afternoon.”

Now you probably don’t believe that story. And there’s nothing wrong in doubting its authenticity.

The human ability to doubt, to distinguish fact from fiction, is part of our self-consciousness. It’s part of what makes us human. We are always critical observers of the world.

When I left my Baptist theological college 30 years ago, I was young and very certain of what I believed and of what I knew; but rather uncertain of who I was.

Thirty years on, I’m much more confident about who I am (and who I am not), but far less certain about what I know. (That’s probably why I’m an Anglo-Catholic Priest today!)

So today in this Easter season, when we think about the post-resurrection appearances of our Lord, I want us to think for a few minutes about this appearance of Jesus to Thomas.

He is always remembered as ‘doubting’ Thomas, although this is a little unfair. We don't forever remember ‘denying’ Peter; nor the beloved disciple as ‘streaker’ John.

And it’s unfair because we ALL doubt.

And I don’t mean thoroughgoing scepticism - doubting everything as a view of life.

Like the man who is on his first parachute jump. The instructor says: "you just jump out of the plane, the chute automatically opens, you land in that field - there'll be a nice cup of tea waiting for you." The man is sceptical. "What if the chute doesn't open?" "No problem. You pull the emergency chute cord. Another parachute opens, you land in that field - there'll be a nice cup of tea waiting for you.

The man jumps. Nothing happens. He pulls the emergency cord. Nothing happens. As he plummets to earth he's muttering to himself: "Bet there's no cup of tea either..."

This scepticism is almost part and parcel of our postmodern society, but it shouldn't stop us from believing; it should only alter our attitude to believing.

Now when I say: 'we all doubt', I don’t mean ‘unbelief’. Whether we believe or not is an informed decision of the will. It is a rational choice.

No, I mean, just letting hard questions float around in our mind. We all doubt in that way.

Questions like: “Is God really there or have I just fooled myself?”

Questions like: “Why do such bad things often happen to good people?”

Questions like: “Am I really called to be a priest?”

And a host of others.

Why do we doubt? What’s behind it?

Well, sin - distrusting God - is at the root of many of the problems of our human condition.

Questioning is not a sin. Distrust of God is. It’s the ancient sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden. 'Has God really got the best intentions for us in this Garden? Is he really good? Or is he selfishly holding something back from us?'

As long as we struggle with sin - and we will always struggle with sin - we will struggle with the doubt of whether God is really good. How can we look at our hurting world and not doubt his goodness sometimes?

To compensate for this we may often fall into another sin - the sin of certainty. For the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.

It is our doubts that unite us. Our convictions divide us.

Which of course doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have convictions - but it does mean you should hold them with a degree of humility.

We all know the sort of person for whom there are only two positions on all subjects – theirs; and the wrong one!

Listen to Luther’s ‘doubter’s’ prayer:

Dear Lord,

Although I am sure of my position,

I am unable to sustain it without thee.

Help me, or I am lost.

And here we acknowledge another factor leading to doubt: human frailty - our limitations in grasping the infinite. And our temptation to think we know it all. We know better than God. Job and Ecclesiastes and good St Thomas remind us of this.

Until, like Thomas, we meet the risen Christ face to face, we will always be those who walk by faith, and not by sight. We will always need to ‘keep on believing’, despite the doubts. “Happy are those who have not seen me” says Jesus “ and yet believe”.

Tennyson put it rather well in The Ancient Sage:

For nothing worthy proving can be proven,

Nor yet disproven: wherefore be thou wise,

Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.

And that brings us on to another factor in doubt: personality. Some Christians find it very hard to ‘cleave to the sunnier side of doubt’.

They are by nature prone to look on the gloomier side of most things. They lie awake at night worrying about everything.

(Like the man who wrote to the IRS: “I can’t sleep at night so I’m enclosing the $5,000 I forgot to declare. PS. If I still can’t sleep I’ll send the rest.”)

I’ve never spent a lot of my time absorbed in metaphysical angst. But I have friends who are constantly plagued by stuff that goes on in their head. St Thomas may have been such a man.

That sometimes-tormented priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, was certainly such a man. He pleads with himself in one of his poems:

My own heart let me more have pity on; let

Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,

Charitable; not live this tormented mind

With this tormented mind tormenting yet…

Soul, self; come poor Jackself, I do advise

You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile…

And how do we call off thoughts awhile? That's another subject, but we have to recognise that some personalities are prone to be plagued, tormented, by doubt.

We read the account from John's gospel today, but Luke gives us another reason for Thomas’s doubt in his gospel. And indeed this reason may be behind the doubt of all the disciples, and all of us who have followed them in choosing to believe.

“... they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement…” (Lk 24.41)

At the heart of our faith is something almost too incredible to believe. Thomas dared not believe it. And every time we consider the risen Christ, it’s as if Jesus says to us again: “See my hands... my side; stop doubting and believe.”

As we shall say in the mass in a few minutes:

This is the mystery of faith:

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again.

The late John Betjeman, a former poet laureate, reflecting on the mystery of Christmas, clung on to that faith, although he hardly dared to believe it:

And is it true? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings

Around those tissued fripperies,

The sweet and silly Christmas things...

Can with this single Truth compare -

That God was Man in Palestine

And lives today in Bread and Wine.

(Christmas)

We always hold on to our faith, through doubt. It is the safe way to believe, and allows us to explore our faith with humility and proper confidence.

I said I would tell you two stories, and so here is the second – and a very different story from the first. It is a true story.

I visited an elderly lady some years ago, Elsie, who had just come out of hospital in my home town in Shoreham- by-Sea on the Sussex coast. Southlands Hospital was a dilapidated, run-down old 1930’s building, that was due to be rebuilt after the war. It was a dump!

Elsie had been close to death at one point, and a bright young doctor had asked her, if she lapsed into unconsciousness, whether she wanted to be revived?

“I ask you Father” Elsie said, “I’m at the gates of Paradise and he asks me if I’d like to come back to Southlands!”

This is proper confidence! This is the Resurrection hope of those who have not seen, and yet believe.

May you know this hope and confidence this joyful Eastertide, and always.

“See my hands... my side; stop doubting and believe.” John 20.27

Maunday Thursay

Maundy Thursday - The Last Supper, the Washing of Feet and the Stripping of the Altars.

“A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” John 13.34

As a boy I always thought that Maundy Thursday was something to do with mourning – I knew it was solemn and sad.

But of course it comes from the middle English version of the Latin word ‘mandatum’ – mandate or commandment.

It is in today’s antiphon from Jesus’ words in our text John 13.34 "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" - "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you".

There are a number of different elements in the observance of the day. Lent ended yesterday, and so at the Chrism mass this morning we sang the Gloria for the first time since Ash Wednesday. We will sing it again this evening with the ringing of bells. And then there are no more glorias or bells as we enter the Triduum, the three days from sunset this evening.

Today we commemorate the institution of the Lord’s supper, the Eucharist, the Mass – although we celebrate it more specifically on the first Thursday in Ordinary time – after Trinity Sunday.

This morning in the Cathedral, because priestly ministry is so bound up with the Lord’s supper, deacons, priests and bishops renewed their ordination vows. It is a time for the renewal of priesthood.

Then again, because priests and bishops use holy oils at Baptism, confirmation and for anointing the sick and dying; the new oils are presented by deacons and blessed by the bishop in the Cathedral and the distributed to all the priests.

After the Last Supper with his disciples, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and agonised in prayer for us. So we build a garden, an altar of repose, and take the blessed sacrament, the symbol of our Lord’s presence with us, and leave Jesus resting among the lilies and candles.

We keep watch with him. “Could ye not watch with me one brief hour’.

And then as Jesus was stripped and humiliated by the soldiers, we strip the altars and the chancel of all coverings and Christian symbols. The choir sing penitential psalms. There are no more blessings from priests, no more holy water, no more sacred fire or altar candles.

Nothing awaiting us now but the Cross and the Death of Death in the Death of Christ

And in the midst of all this movement, priests follow the example of Christ and wash the feet of the disciples of Christ.

For everything else is as a clanging cymbal, empty ritual, if there is no love, no serving the Common Good.

So on this night, here is the very tangible, and down-to-earth symbol of God’s saving grace: the washing of feet, the enactment of the Gospel truth that we are saved to serve.

Jesus sets the pattern for us – the life we receive from God, the Body and Blood of Christ, are to sustain us in service of one another and of the world around us.

This was the great Anglo-Catholic mission of the 19th century – to exalt the sacrament of the mass, in order to serve the needy and the outcasts of society. That was why St Paul’s founded St Mary’s and St Barnabas. That was why the slum priests spent their lives ministering to the poor and disadvantaged.

At this Last Supper we rejoice in a God who gives us his flesh to eat and who washes our feet as an example of the servant love we are to proclaim and demonstrate to the world.

“A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” John 13.34

Baptism - spiritual milk

Easter 2 - the Baptism of Poppy

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.” 1 Peter 2.22

There’s a difference between the way that American Baptists baptize and British Baptists, although both baptize adults by immersion in water.

In my former life as a Baptist minister, I would stand up to my waist in water and with one hand on the collar and one on the solar plexus of the adult candidate, I would propel the person rapidly backwards until the water closed over their face.

It was dramatic and messy and time will not permit me to tell of my adventures in trying to raise a 24 stone lady from the bottom of the baptistry, or of the very chic white cotton Italian trousers I decided to wear one evening. As I walked down into the pool, they turned completely transparent.

My first baptism in an American Southern Baptist church was a revelation. No unseemly dunking and splashing for them. The candidate held a cloth over their nose and mouth and were 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 grave, than 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 Poppy may be strong as an ox, but Fr Alan will be pouring and not dipping. We’ll leave total immersion to the Archbishop of York who helped plunge 20 new adult Christians beneath the water last Sunday.

But 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.’

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.

In today’s Gospel, Thomas wrestles with this. Can the dead come back to life? If this is really Jesus before him, then everything is different. Yet still he doubts.

And Jesus doesn’t tell him to stop doubting – that’s not a very good translation – he tells him “be unbelieving no longer”. And John at the end of this passage says “these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ”.

Whatever else we do or don’t believe in Christianity; however many doubts we have - and some of us are plagued by more of theme 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. It wasn’t just a ‘nice idea’ that the disciples dreamed up to give the Christian message a bit of vavavavoom!

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, ‘happy are those who have not seen [what you have seen] and yet believe” – that’s us! Easter is a time to celebrate that happiness, and baptism is a rehearsal of all that lies behind that joy and peace which Jesus has promised 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. The Lent disciplines were a time for solid food, and I don’t just mean Rococo chocolate bars.

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?

Baptism is a reminder to all of us of our baptismal vows. It is 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.”