St Mary, Balcombe Baptism of the Lord 9.1.22

You can be baptised but have little experience of the Holy Spirit. We know you can be baptised and have little experience of the church - compare the numbers in our baptism registers with those in our service registers!  Yet those of us who come to Church still need encouragement to welcome the Holy Spirit and today’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord is such an encouragement.

In the second reading we heard of the predicament of the Samarian Christians. ‘Peter and John… prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus). They laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 8:15-17).This passage is often read at confirmation services where the Bishop does what Peter and John did - lay hands on those baptised invoking the Spirit. We receive special anointing of the Spirit at baptism, confirmation and ordination but need to experience what God has given us.  

How do we wake up to the Holy Spirit?

Scripture gives us two answers – by looking outside of ourselves and inside of ourselves. 

Our Lord welcomed the Holy Spirit from above as in today’s Gospel. Elsewhere he speaks of the Holy Spirit flowing from within as in John 7:38:  ‘Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water’.

Scripture records how Moses’s faith lit up when God kindled a flame in the burning bush and yet Paul advised Timothy to ‘rekindle the gift of God which is within’ (2 Timothy 1:6).

Sometimes we need to ask God to give us a vision of himself outside of ourselves so we get humbled into receiving his love. Other times we seek a release from the stuff within us that’s blocking the flow of that love.

If we have been baptised God is already at work within us. In Timothy’s case Paul reminded him that he’d laid hands on him for the Holy Spirit to come years ago. Wake up, he said, to what God has given you. Stir up the gift – in another translation. 

I always think of sugar in the bottom of an unstirred cup of tea. Does that fit your life this morning? God’s inside of you but your life needs sweetening by a bit of a stir? Or, to use another image, that of a gas fire, is it a matter of recognising the pilot light is lit within you but you need to turn the gas on and let the Holy Spirit really take hold of you?

Come, Holy Spirit, and awaken us! You are God in the present moment, make God more present to us, stir us up within, ignite our faith and our prayer on this Feast!

Today Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Christ which means the Anointed One. To be a Christian is to share in the anointing of the Anointed One. As we heard in the Gospel: ‘Jesus Christ will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire’ (Luke 3:16).

How do we wake up to the Holy Spirit?

I remember as a student meeting a special priest who had holiness and integrity. Just a few choice words now and then from him were like commands from God - the Holy Spirit zapped me through those words and got me praying - and you know, the more you pray the more you want to pray! Then the more the Spirit burns within us, the more others around us are drawn to the fire of God’s love. Our thirst for God - and the Spirit gives you a thirst for God - infects others. When we pray ‘Come, Holy Spirit’ - and I recommend doing that as part of offering your life to God first thing every morning - we see spiritual needs and opportunities and the hand of God working in our lives hour by hour.

Brother Roger of Taize once said something that’s at the heart of church growth and revitalisation by the Spirit. He said: ‘When the church becomes a house of prayer the whole world will come running!’. It is so. As another Frenchman, Blaise Pascal, said three centuries before him: ‘Holiness is the church’s greatest influence’.  The Holy Spirit who works through scripture and the pulpit works to make the bread and wine extraordinary so that you and I can be extraordinary - the Holy Spirit makes us so. That extraordinariness links to both suffering and the supernatural. 

When I see joy on the faces of Christians near to death - I think of my friend Eve - it is the Spirit. When I hear people speaking in tongues, I recognise a supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues is a love language commended as an aid for private prayer by St Paul though its public use can have extraordinary impact. I commend praying for this gift if your prayer life is in the doldrums.

An awakening to the Spirit, a releasing of the Spirit, an unblocking of his flow – this is the invitation and challenge of today’s Feast which links in with suffering and experience of the supernatural. There is ‘one baptism for the forgiveness of sins’ and it confers the Holy Spirit. A gift though when given needs to be received. For Christians to seek the renewing power of the Spirit – we do so as we receive Holy Communion every Sunday - is a matter of seeking to be more fully what we are meant to be in Christ in terms of spiritual empowerment and nothing less! 

We want to be people who know their need for such empowerment! Meanwhile the Spirit is waiting to confirm to us the same words spoken to Our Lord at his baptism: ‘You are my Son, [my Daughter], the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’ (Luke 3:22). Come, Holy Spirit! 

St Bartholomew, Brighton Baptism of the Lord 12.1.20

You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3.17

Today the church throughout the world keeps the feast that completes the naming of Our Lord. Christmastide started with the birth of Jesus but it moves to a close with today’s Feast of his Baptism as the Christ, we heard about in the Gospel:

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. Matthew 3.16

Who is Jesus Christ?  He is Jesus, the Anointed One, the One on whom the Spirit rests – that is the meaning of ‘Christ’.

Our Lord was born to live in obscurity for 30 years. Then in his 30th year he comes for baptism.  The heavens open, the Spirit descends. Jesus, conceived and born of the Spirit is filled with the Spirit. The Scriptures tell us he then returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spreads through the whole countryside

Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.  He says this of himself – and of us!

His anointing as Christ and Messiah is not just for him - it is to be shared with us.  

Our Lord is anointed by the Holy Spirit as Christ so that we might share in his anointing!

A Christian is one who shares in the anointing of the Anointed One.  We can only do what the Church must do if we welcome and own that anointing in the Holy Spirit which is our own through baptism.

I believe that the church in this land has not failed so much as shrunk back from its task and that we need to get back to basics. That is why we need what Our Lord received and offered at his baptism – we need the Holy Spirit to come in power upon us. 

Almost his last words to his first disciples at the hour of his ascension were a promise that takes up these first words about him at the start of his ministry: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses he said, as recorded in Acts 1.8

How’s your enthusiasm for sharing your faith? As one who shares in the Spirit’s anointing could today’s Holy Communion be for you a rekindling of passion through a fresh anointing in that Spirit on the Feast of Our Lord’s own anointing?

Sometimes we have an anointing from above or beyond ourselves.  Other times – and I think this is very important – it is more a matter of experiencing an unblocking of the streams within.

In the story of Lourdes the key figure is the peasant girl, Bernadette, the shepherdess who in 1854 received a number of visions, allegedly of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In one of these visions Our Lady asked her to lift up some stones so that a spring was uncovered, a spring that flows to this day, a healing stream visited by millions every year.

How important discernment is! What healing streams can flow from one little insight!

We have a mission at St Bartholomew’s. Our Lord needs more enthusiasm in his people but where shall we get it from?  

The word ‘enthusiasm’ means literally ‘in God’. It comes from an ever-fresh welcoming of the anointing of the Anointed One, a readiness to be shown where the flow of the Holy Spirit is getting blocked within us. It might be unforgiveness or unbelief, a quiet cynicism or readiness to speak ill of others, seek where it is, lift the stone and you will see how the Spirit flows again in your life, through you and around you, into your circle, into St Bartholomew’s!

Our Lord says:  Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.  As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’  Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive John 7:37-9

How the Church needs to take this invitation to heart! How else can we hope to generate new enthusiasm about Christian Faith other than through some heart-searching for the things that weigh down and block the Spirit in our lives and in our Christian community? 

As we do so – and let Our Blessed Lord lift those stones, the weight of sin – we will recover a sense of God’s goodness and become his effective instruments – real good news people!.

As baptised, confirmed - and some of us - ordained Christians we possess the Holy Spirit! We possess the Spirit - but does he possess us? That is the key to a spiritual vitality! The late Dom Ian Petit of Ampleforth wrote these words in his book You Will Receive Power: Baptism and Confirmation confer a supernatural gift, but ignorance or lack of understanding of the gift, can block its full effect. In other words, while the sacrament is valid and has been given, the effect has been blocked. When the block is removed then the full effect floods in...(a) baptism in the Holy Spirit… an opportunity for awakening in (people) their sacraments of initiation..

The New Year and Decade begin with a liturgical reminder about our ongoing need for this unblocking and awakening to the power of the Holy Spirit who visits us at every Eucharist. An awakening to the Spirit, a releasing of the Spirit, an unblocking of his flow – this is the invitation and challenge of today’s Feast!  

There is one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and it confers the Holy Spirit. A gift though is given that needs to be received. For Christians to seek the renewing power of the Spirit – as we do as we receive Holy Communion every Sunday - is a matter of seeking to be more fully what we are in Christ and nothing more or less than that! 

We want to be a people that live knowing their need of grace!

The Spirit is waiting to confirm to us the same words that were spoken to Our Lord at his baptism: You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. 

Christians share in the anointing of the Anointed One – Jesus is the Christ or Anointed One so he can share his anointing with us and speak into our hearts those words of adoption: You are my son, my daughter; with you I am well pleased.

I have baptised you with water; John the Baptist said but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit. This baptism or gift of the Holy Spirit is an ongoing reality for those who will commit themselves. The Gift is not so much a once for all thing or commodity but rather something dynamic and ongoing. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a process in which the relationship that opens up at Baptism becomes an ongoing flow of love, praise and power leading into ongoing consecration in the Truth.

It is worth recalling that though Our Lord himself was conceived by the Holy Spirit he waited 30 years for his Baptism in Jordan. So it can be – as it was for me and can be for you - that though I had received the Spirit through Infant Baptism, Confirmation and Ordination the first deep experience came many years later.

For me this came through, of all things, a crisis of faith – and a recommitment! Shortly after my ordination and First Mass I began to have serious questioning in my journey of faith. I went on a retreat and prayed ‘God if you’re there show yourself, give me a vision of yourself more to your dimensions and less to mine’ – and he did – and keeps on doing - and what he does for me he can do for you - believe me!

Another way to look at it is like this: if the Christian life is like a rose bush there are great spurts of growth from time to time that push out new branches with new flowers. One such branch  and its some branch in its fruitfulness – is, if you like, a new opening up to God’s Spirit. Yet, like the life of the rose bush, its the same Christian life before and after such a new spurt of growth.

We possess the Spirit - but does he possess us? That is the question we are being asked on this feast of Our Lord’s Baptism.  There is a commitment issue here we need to address. As we come to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion are we really committed and open to his empowering?  Are we ready to hear and to believe those wonderful words: You are my son, my daughter; with you I am well pleased.  

After the sermon we sing the Creed together. May the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life strengthen us in both the practice of our Faith and in enthusiasm to share it with others in the coming Decade!

Baptism of the Lord Diocesan Year of the Bible 8th January 2017

As we move forward with the Diocesan Year of the Bible it’s with the reminder of how God’s word has the power to transform our lives, communities and nation. Unless we’re being strengthened, challenged and encouraged by scripture we can’t be salt and light in our culture. When we fail to let the bible speak into our everyday life we miss out on tremendous blessings.

Christian faith is personal knowledge of God gained directly by revelation and mediated by the community of faith which is the Church. Theology is the interpreting of faith one to another in the church as in this activity of preaching and listening. Belief is an expression of faith and a work of theology and the Bible is the most authoritative expression of faith because it is directly inspired by God.  What the Church teaches, her dogmas and creeds and the writings of the Church’s Fathers and Mothers has authority second to Scripture.

Yes we need guidance in reading the Bible. Yes there are passages that are obscure and unpleasant. Yes reading the Bible requires discipline. But – well I hope what I share from my own take on today’s readings makes it that bit more clear - failing to let the Bible speak into your life is failing to fuel your faith and a very great missing out.

We find in the Bible good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, a portrait to live up to and guidance on how we do that.

There are a few pew Bibles out if you want to put today’s readings in context. Or you may have Scripture on your phone. Let’s start in the middle with that second reading from the Acts of the Apostles which you can find as the fifth book of the New Testament straight after the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

If you find your way to Acts 10:36-41 we can follow through one of the earliest proclamations of Christian faith from the lips of St Peter, also, of course in the eucharist booklet on p2. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:  how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem.

In the New Testament we read repeatedly of the impact of Jesus, God’s Child sent to make us God’s children. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good. He had to do this because, and it’s true to this day, so many are oppressed. God saw that oppression and came to lift it. How did he do it?  We read on in v39 They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. Here in a sentence of the Bible we have the whole of Christianity, the kindling of faith. When Jesus Christ suffered and died God was in him. There was divine judo at play. Death flew at God and ended up upside down and out at the count.

Today’s second reading concludes in v43 with the consequent good news. Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. When we read the Bible we’re reminded of its good news that all can start again through God’s loving forgiveness. There’s a new start available to all without any partiality, whoever they are and whatever they’ve done, if they will but repent, that is turn from self-interest and bow down before the living and true God manifest in Jesus Christ.

This good news is dynamite, blowing out any exclusivity or pride in religion, affirming God as God of everyone who’ll admit their need of him.

I take out of this second bible passage today what I take out of so many bible passages the good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ I need reminding of day by day so my faith gets the regular tonic it needs in the counter-faith and post-truth world I live in.

We find then, in the Bible, good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and, secondly, a portrait to live up to and guidance on how to do that.

Let’s look at today’s other two readings for that portrait. The readings are linked to today’s feast of the Lord’s Baptism at the end of Christmastide and refer to the historical base of Christian faith. The Gospel from Matthew 3 – look it up right at the start of the New Testament in your Bible - tells of the event of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist and how the Spirit came upon him. This was in fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah Chapter 42, our first reading, situated well into the Old Testament among the prophetic writings, that starts with a sentence that illuminates the event of Christ’s baptism. Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

In the Matthew passage we read how Christ was baptised reluctantly from his own point of view – he had the Spirit from his conception in the womb of Our Lady - but readily as an example to all he calls to put personal faith in him within the community of faith. The portrait in Matthew 3v17 is of you and I as much as of Jesus. This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

When we read the Bible with faith, that is, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that goes beyond reason, we see how God sees us and we gain grace or help to accommodate our lives to him.

To faith those words of the Bible prophesied in Isaiah 42 and spoken of Jesus in Matthew 3 are liberating truth about ourselves. You may feel done down by life, overcome by temptation, weakness and inadequacy but God loves you nevertheless.

Pick up your bible and read all over it words like these that are for you.  This is my Son, my Daughter, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. The Spirit is waiting to confirm to us the same words that were spoken to Our Lord at his baptism: You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. That’s one way the Bible can work – as a love letter from God! There is one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and it confers the Holy Spirit. God’s Child Jesus was given to anoint us with his Spirit and make us God’s children. A gift though is given that needs to be received. For Christians to seek the renewing power of the Spirit – as we do receiving Holy Communion every Sunday - is a matter of seeking to be more fully what we are in Christ and nothing more or less than that!

We want to be a people that live knowing their need of grace! Christians share in the anointing of the Anointed One – Jesus is the Christ or Anointed One so he can share his anointing with us and speak into our hearts those words of adoption: You are my son, my daughter; with you I am well pleased.

The good news of Christmas and Christianity is the Son of God became the Son of Man so children of men could become children of God. This Diocesan Year of the Bible is a fresh invitation to ponder that good news, what it means for God to give us his Son and what it means for us to enter more fully what we’re meant to be as God’s beloved daughters and sons. I wish you every blessing as you discover afresh your heritage and enter into it afresh through Scripture and the Eucharist.