In Baptism,
the identity and call of Jesus was affirmed. The next chapter of Mathew is
about the temptations in the wilderness.
In our baptism,
our identity is affirmed, as children of God. That doesn’t mean that until we
are baptised we are not known or not loved by God.
Baptism is a
sign of grace, a reminder of what already is.
Baptism is not
an insurance policy.
Baptism is not
armour against temptation, or illness, or difficulty.
Baptism is
not a guarantee that we will be better people.
Martin
Luther, was one of the leaders of the reformation.
When Luther
himself was hold up in a castle translating the Greek Bible into German so that
for the very first time somewhat regular folks could read the Word of God for
themselves, well,
while he was doing this he struggled mightily with doubt and
discouragement from what he understood to be the devil. And he was known to not
only throw the occasional ink pots at whatever was tormenting him and causing
him to doubt God's promises, but while doing so he could be heard throughout
the castle grounds shouting "I am baptized".[i]
Not I was
Baptised, but I am Baptised.
Baptism is a
sacrament, a sign, a symbol – not a sign of anything we have done, but of what
God has done and will continue to do in our lives.
Sometimes it
is easy to think of baptism as something that happened, a once off; but just as
a wedding marks the beginning of a marriage; baptism marks the beginning of the
life of discipleship.
This morning
there is the opportunity to reaffirm our baptism, our commitment to being
disciples of Jesus Christ.
For you who have
not been baptised, I encourage you to think about your relationship with God through
the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Also, if you
are not baptised, and would like to have a conversation about that, please let
me know.
