Baptism of Wilfred Mawby 26th February 2012

Putting first things first is a struggle.

What we see as first things should determine how we do everything else, but mortal beings struggle to accomplish this.

In baptising Wilfred his parents are making a statement of intention to write God large in their family and put lesser things in their place. The form of their baptismal promise, which calls for divine help, touches on the struggle entailed. With the help of God, we will.

Both parents are strategists, Will with his background as an army officer and Liz in her work on media consultancy. It has been a pleasure to get to know them and the other residents of Treemans, a place so much part of the history of Horsted Keynes, as we have prepared for today.

Parenting tests strategic thinking to its limits but I’m sure Will and Liz will deliver, not least from the evidence there is of their holding to vision and delivering on commitment!

Today’s baptism is itself placed strategically so as to help us best start Lent here at St Giles as I will explain. I apologise for the inconvenience that strategy has put many of our visitors to as they’ve made time in busy schedules to speed down to Sussex for a mid-morning baptism.

On Monday I visited the splendid Hajj exhibition at the British Museum. In the Hajj pilgrimage Muslims fulfil one of the five tenets of their faith through a once in a lifetime visit to Mecca.

As they go on Hajj Muslims settle debts and seek forgiveness from family and friends to travel over land to the place they pray towards and, more profoundly, back in time to the foundational events of Islam linked to Muhammad and before him Abraham and Adam.

Like Ramadan, another Pillar of Islam, Hajj is a Muslim back to basics, putting first things first call for that religion based as it is on submission to God, which, literally, in Arabic is Islam.

Seeing film of hundreds of thousands of Muslims circling the cubic Ka’ba, traditional site of Abraham’s sacrifice, was absolutely fascinating – I do recommend the exhibition. The holy pull of Mecca was further expressed in the contemporary artist Ahmed Mater al-Ziad’s work Magnetism which shows a magnetic cube like the Ka’ba surrounded by a swirl of iron filings.

It’s that holy pull or magnetism essential to baptism that’s ours to rediscover as Christians in our Lenten pilgrimage to the Easter Festival.

The purpose of Lent is a year by year re-setting of sights on the vision of Christ that draws us and that marks all the baptised with an affinity to him.

For as Jesus died and rose so Christian people in baptism put the old self to death and rise to new life in the Holy Spirit. This principle, announced in baptism, needs putting into practice throughout our lives as we find ourselves drawn by the magnet, not of a stone in Arabia, but of the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Putting first things first is a struggle. It is less so if you capture the magnetism Dostoyevsky spoke of when he said there has never been anyone lovelier, deeper or more sympathetic than Jesus. The unique warmth, simplicity and humanity of Jesus challenge anyone who picks up a copy of the Gospels. Is there any figure in history that rivals him? Even the atheist Rousseau said: it would have been a greater miracle to invent such a life as Christ’s than to be it.

We, God’s people at St Giles, are one with Wilfred’s parents today, as we start Lent alongside them, setting our sights afresh on the centrality of Jesus Christ to human existence and aspiration.

Repent, and believe in the good news we heard in today’s Gospel. This good news was spelled out in the first reading from 1 Peter: Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit..and baptism...now saves you.

How does baptism save us? By giving us an affinity with God through Jesus Christ. This makes us capable of being drawn towards him in this life and the life to come, magnetising us to draw others to him too through that inner capacity.

Faith is needed as well since this magnetic gift from Christ our Rock doesn’t automatically overcome our wilfulness. Christianity unlike Islam holds to the inherent sinfulness, or fallenness away from God, of human nature. Infant baptism counters original sin.

We don’t call the Door by the Font the devil’s door for nothing.

Today’s Scripture has the account of the temptation of Jesus who, we’re told was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

As Jesus was tempted so will this young man be, and Christian faith is the will to repent or turn again and again to the Lord that’s made easier by one’s apprehension of his immense love. As Jesus in the Gospel account was both given the Spirit at his baptism and then driven by the Spirit to speak of God having come close to us, so is the call upon Wilfred, his parents and all of us as we start Lent.

Putting first things first is a struggle.

When we fall in love the one we love is put first and we struggle through many things to be with them. May the love of Will and Liz for Wilfred that seeks the best for him struggle on to achieve it. May our keeping of Lent rekindle such love for the Lord that we find Christian life less of a struggle and are ever more drawn by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.