delivered on 19 July 2009
by Rev. Dr John Evans
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
A baptism is a great occasion. It is an occasion for rejoicing and celebration for the person who is baptised and for the church which welcomes a newly baptised member. Today the baptism of young Alexander is one of those great days here at Church of All Nations.
In the baptism of a child, it is also a significant day for their parents and family. For the baptism is also saying something about what they believe and what they hope for their child, and for themselves.
In last Sunday’s sermon, I spoke about how there has been a great shift within our community and Australian society. Once, we may have been able to assume that being born here, one was being born into Christian culture, a Christian family, into a particular church and certainly into an understanding of the Christian faith. We called it Christendom. And so baptism was what we did to infants. It was the normal thing to do.
However, as I indicated last week, that world no longer really exists in Australia. Those sorts of congregations are in fact not regenerating and are slowing ebbing away. People who today just want their child ‘done’, because there is felt to be some cultural obligation, are also becoming very rare.
And as I suggested last week, the churches that show life and vitality are not these cultural relics from the past stoically maintained by faithful souls, but are congregations that passionately come together because their members want to be together to worship God and serve their community. The Christian faith means something for their lives, and their faith is important for their community. They want to be a part of the Christian story in a particular place.
So today when a couple brings their child to be baptised, they are saying not only that the Christian faith will be important in their child’s life, but that following Jesus in their own lives is important. They see that God’s grace and love extends to their own child, even though their child does not understand it at this time.
And here with young Alexander, who it is fair to say, has lived a rugged and courageous life thus far, and seen more doctors than most of us here at Church today, Paul and Pru, all of us, rejoice and affirm that he too is a child of God; he is richly blessed and greatly loved. As we said in the baptism itself:
Alexander for you Jesus Christ has come,
has lived, has suffered:
for you he endured the agony of Gethsemane
and the darkness of Calvary;
for you he uttered the cry “It is accomplished!”
For you he triumphed over death;
for you he prays at God’s right hand;
for you, Alexander, even before you were born.
In baptism the word of the apostle is confirmed:
‘We love, because God first loved us.’
In short, we are saying that, even today, baptism means something and is very important. An obvious conclusion for a Christian minister to make – but it is again affirmed in our readings this morning. A simple message I would wish to leave with you is that Jesus brings new life. The message from our readings could be simply summarized as being: where Jesus goes, newness is possible.
Our reading from Mark illustrates well how this happened during his lifetime. We read this morning two small connecting passages, perhaps summary passages, in the midst of frenetic activity in Chapter 6. After his rejection in his hometown of Nazareth, his fame spreads through Galilee. He fed 5,000 people (as Mark quaintly says, not counting the women and children), he stilled a storm, he taught and healed. Indeed around Gennasaret,
Wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
Even while Jesus and his disciples are trying to have a break, the people still come. He has compassion on them, “because they are like sheep without a shepherd.”
Jesus is seen to offer something for which the people are craving. There is a hollowness and hopelessness abroad which Jesus perceives and he addresses this need. Such hopelessness happens at the most basic level – people need food and they seek better health for themselves or family. Beyond that, he also teaches and provides guidance and hope – all what a good shepherd might offer. Where Jesus goes, newness is possible.
Now Jesus is acutely aware that the simple unfolding of miracle upon miracle, like we are read about happening in Gennesaret, does not necessarily bring about a long lasting, transformed, new life. We understand this only too well here at CAN. We gladly offer people material assistance for whatever reason. The food, the vouchers and the money we give away all helps in the short term, but that does not necessarily help when that person becomes dependent on you when they regularly need more money, or food, or whatever, all the time. We can create an unhealthy dependency and does not allow that person to actually address their issues, and move to a new life. Effectively nothing changes in their life. There is no transformed life.
Jesus throughout the gospels was skeptical of people who only believed because they had seen a sign, or received a miracle. Jesus was wishing to see life lived at a deeper level, a new life rather than just a shallow hope that the next miracle would solve all problems.
The theologian Paul in our reading from Ephesians illustrates one of the deeper dimensions of what this new life, or a new humanity, or new way of living, of being “in Christ” might look like. Paul examines a dimension far beyond Jesus helping us when we feel glum (to which, sadly, the need for the Christian faith often gets reduced). Paul looks at the big questions of the causes of alienation. He speaks of people being like an alien, not having a home, rootless and separated form others. He notes we define ourselves through categories of “blood or family” or “race” – I am an Australian and therefore I am better than others; or “religion”, or allegiance to a football team, or whether I will only use an Apple Mac computer. Divisions are created and there arises hostility. Jesus breaks down such alienation and offers to all new life, through a new relationship with God.
The big issue in the early church which prompts this observation was whether God’s love, through Jesus, extended to Gentiles, to non-Jews. Or was it only available to Jewish people? It seems that again and again Paul needs to address this issue. Simply, Jesus extends his love to all people, and not just the Jews or the righteous. Jesus thus is seen to address not just those issues which individually may affect us – like our health or hunger – but the very essence of our humanity. In two great verses from Ephesians we have a much broader vision of what it this possible newness in Jesus may mean:
The 10-foot concrete wall dividing Jews and Gentiles at Abu Dis, a town near Jerusalem
For Jesus is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups [Jews and Gentiles] into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us.
He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace.
Jesus offers us a new way of conceiving of ourselves as children of God – not bound by those categories of race, or class, or wealth, or status or whatever. Through Jesus we may have the possibility of being in relationship with God – God, who is the very ground of our being, the very sustainer and mover of our world, the source of peace and of hope. Here is the ultimate possibility of newness, available for all.
The good folk of Galilee were not wrong in seeing that in Jesus there was something special – and so they brought their sick to him and in their thousands they came to hear him speak. However, the full depth of what that might all mean would need to unfold, as people journeyed with him through his death and resurrection.
Even his disciples at that time did not fully understand. Only after his death and resurrection did people like Paul come to reflect on what a new relationship with God might mean for our lives – how that newness, or new humanity could be lived out.
In baptism we retrace Jesus’ own dying and his rising to new life. This is what the baptised person claims. It is what we celebrate today for young Alexander – and indeed for all baptised people. In baptism we recall we die to the old life, the old ways, old life and we look to enjoy a new relationship with God, a new life and a new way of being fully human.
Today is a great day; remember our own baptism and that in Jesus newness is possible.
