Baptism and Being Transformed

The Baptism of the Lord 2025

Isaiah 40.1-5,9-11 ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’

Titus 2.11-14; 3.4-7 ‘He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit’

Luke 3.15-16,21-22 ‘When Jesus had been baptised and was praying, the heavens were opened.’

 

The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

Titus 2.11

 

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The Advent proclamation of John the Baptist, so familiar to many from Handel’s Messiah is ‘comfort ye, comfort ye, my people’ and it is soon followed by verses also in our first reading (and also that appear in Messiah).

 

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

 

Today, on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, in our gospel reading, the glory of God is revealed: ‘the heavens were opened’ (Luke 3.21b); it’s visible to everyone - ‘the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove’ (Luke 3.22a); and the mouth of the LORD speaks - ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’ (Luke 3.22b).

 

The Baptism of the Lord is what is known as a theophany, literally meaning a ‘God-showing’.

 

Last Sunday, this Sunday and next Sunday we celebrate three theophanies, showings of God, when the Magi come to the manger, his baptism and his first sign, the miraculous transformation of water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana.

 

All three events reveal God and demand human transformation.

 

Transformed by the divine encounter, the Magi eschew the well-trodden route and take a new road home; the crowds at the baptism glimpse the heavens opened and hear the voice of God; the guests see transformation in abundance at the wedding feast with Christ the Bridegroom.

 

It’s this call to transformation that is picked up in the letter of St Paul to Titus.

 

Titus, a companion of Paul on many journeys had oversight of the church on the island of Crete as their Bishop.

 

The letter to Titus is perhaps not the best known of his epistles, but it contains important guidance and encouragement to its first hearers.

 

And the letter to Titus has contemporary resonance too.

 

And it is a message of transformation that he is giving: Christians aren’t to wallow in the ways we see all around us, but the ways we see in Christ, with our sights fixed on him.

 

After he comes to baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire!

 

Paul urges Titus to remind the Cretan believers that while they live in a sinful culture and have a sinful past, they can be transformed into a new humanity by the same grace that Jesus demonstrated when he died to redeem them.

 

As a new humanity, they are called to live lives consistent with God's generous love.

 

So are we.

 

That’s what the first part of our second reading was describing.

 

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. (Titus 2.11,12)

 

It is their baptism, and ours, that makes this transformation possible.

 

Baptism is the guarantee that Jesus Christ, who comes to baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire, calls us to a life that mirrors the kingdom of God and reflects the love of God and not the corruption of human society, by drawing us into his Body, the Church, which is a sign and foretaste of the Kingdom.

 

But do we live like that?

 

Elsewhere in writing to Titus, Paul pulls no punches about the way we can go off the rails, as he knows he and Titus, a former pagan, once did:

 

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. (Titus 3.3)

 

It’s not a pretty account!

 

‘But’, he goes on:

 

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3.4-7)

 

In the Creed that we proclaim Sunday by Sunday, we declare that ‘We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.’

 

What we’re saying is that being baptised, being a Christian, flows from the Baptism of the Lord.

 

It’s not down to us, there’s nothing we do to deserve redemption, it is sheer grace, pure mercy, and when we accept it, it is a new birth – regeneration – that makes us a new creation in Christ:

 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5.17)

 

There’s transformation for you!

 

Baptism brings us into Christ’s life such that we have been transformed, we are in the process of being transformed now, by his mercy, and we will be transformed when the waiting is over and ‘our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (Titus 2.14) is fulfilled.

 

Thanks be to God, for ‘The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people’.

 

The manifest Saviour: an Epiphany Homily

The Epiphany of the Lord, 2025

 

Isaiah 60.1-6 ‘The glory of the Lord has risen upon you’

Ephesians 3.2-3a, 5-6 ‘It has now been revealed that the Gentiles are fellow heirs of the promise’

Matthew 2.1-12 ‘We have come from the east to worship the king’

 

 

‘For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship’

Matthew 2.2

 

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Today, the feast of the Epiphany, also has the title in the Book of Common Prayer 1662 – the definitive Anglican prayer book – of ‘The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles’.

 

Neither the word ‘epiphany’ or ‘manifestation’ is in the gospels, but we use both words to describe the showing of the new-born Christ to the Gentiles, that is people outside the Israelite nation, the nations of the world, who are represented by the Magi.

 

Epiphany literally means ‘to show’ or ‘show outwards’; and manifest literally means, ‘grabbed by the hand’, a vigorous way of saying something is being pointed out.

 

The feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, the Manifestation of Christ to the Nations, is all about human attention being caught by something beyond itself.

 

It’s a visual feast: light comes and shines. (Isaiah 60.1)

 

Light – in the form of a star - that draws and attracts, that grabs our attention and leads us to the mystery.

 

In the case of the Magi, their attention is grabbed by the shining star that appeared in the sky; and you cannot get much more beyond oneself than something appearing in the sky: the star signifies the call of God, maker of ‘the stars of night’, saying here is the Saviour.

 

But the use and meaning of the word manifest is changing, as words do, and changing in a somewhat disturbing way.

 

‘Manifest’ was actually the Cambridge Dictionary word of the year for 2024

 

And the new way it’s being used is practically the opposite to how we’re using it today, on the feast of the Epiphany.

 

The way it is being used is not about something outside oneself appearing, being revealed or shown, but is about picturing something in your mind to imagine what you want to achieve, in the belief that it is more likely to happen.

 

This use appeared last summer at the Olympics and Paralympics a number of gold medal winners attributed their achievement to ‘manifesting’: I visualised it and so I made it happen.

 

So ‘manifest’ in its new use means I picture a goal or target inwardly, in the hope and belief of making it real and I use specific practices to focus my mind on something I want, to try to make it become a reality.

 

You might say it sounds a bit like prayer; but that is to misread both ‘manifesting’ and prayer.

 

Prayer directs our inner life beyond self to God; whereas ‘manifesting’ is to become self-absorbed in the belief that picturing what you want to happen will happen, if you want it enough.

 

Sadly, it is a beguiling lie and falsehood to say that if you want something enough you can have it.

 

It is spiritually corrosive; the antidote is prayer to God.

 

Prayer is the soul’s whisper ‘be it unto me according to thy word’; ‘manifesting’ is ‘be it unto me according to what I want’.

 

To ‘manifest’ is a new version of an old illusion, that of chasing after idols of our own making; it is an idol is created within.

 

What we have are two alternative routes to navigate where we find truth and reality and where we locate ourselves in a big universe: my way or God’s way.

 

Without belief in God, we inevitably go inside to find meaning and hope: the individual becomes the beginning, the middle and end of the story.

 

Without God we try to generate life and hope and peace by ourselves.

 

Do that and we become rapidly exhausted.

 

After all, if you generate all the meaning in your own life but feel empty and hopeless, ambitions not realised, when you want something so much but don’t get it, the only person you can blame is yourself.

 

There are the roots of the spiritual and mental health crisis in the West.

 

What a relief and blessing is faith in that which lies beyond us, in God, whose good news revealed to the Magi is that there is a Saviour, not of our imagining or discovery, for all nations and peoples.

 

God is made manifest - in the original sense - revealing, showing, grabbing our attention to draw us out of the mire of self-delusion into the glorious liberty of being utterly dependent on Him.

 

The journey of the Magi, which reveals this truth, is an ancient quest with huge contemporary resonance.

 

In a world of seeking, that lapses into ‘manifesting’, what the Magi show us is that beyond ourselves lies true hope and the true satisfaction of human desire in the babe of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ.

 

The journey is Jesus Christ - the Way, the Truth and the Life - the destination is Jesus Christ: the star signifies the call of Christ by which we can orient and root our lives.

 

This calls us away from idols of our making, or, should I say of our own ‘manifesting’ and takes us to the heart of reality in the Creator of all things.

 

Ultimately it moves us to worship and adoration.

 

The tyrant Herod was a ‘manifester’ taken to its worst, destructive and ultimate conclusion: his request that ‘I too may come and worship him’ was really to take a chance to destroy a rival to his worship of himself, where he is his own god.

 

Herod wanted a world on his own terms, God on his own terms, based around his own gratification.

 

The Epiphany of the Lord, this Manifestation, reverses our inclination to self-worship and directs us out of self-interest to worship of God.

 

In this New Year, in this Eucharist, may we fix our sights on Christ, the Morning Star, and fall down before him in worship and adoration offering our gifts and talents back to the One who gave them to us in the first place.

 

‘For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship’

The Holy Family: Crucible of holiness

The Holy Family 2024

 

1 Samuel 1.20-22, 24-28 ‘Samuel, as long as he lives, is lent to the Lord.’

1 John 3.1-2,21-24 ‘We are called children of God, and so we are.’

Luke 2.41-52 Jesus is found by his parents sitting among the teachers

 

‘See what kind of love the Father has given to us,

that we should be called children of God; and so we are’

(1 John 3.1)

 

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The carol, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ tells us that:

 

Christian children all must be

Mild, obedient, good as He.

 

Despite the carol speaking of his ‘wondrous childhood’ and saying that Jesus is ‘our childhood’s pattern’, it sometimes sounds like Jesus wasn’t a mild, obedient child.

 

Take this morning’s gospel reading, for instance.

 

Jesus joined his earthly family on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover, ‘according to custom’ (Luke 2.42).

 

So far so good.

 

But when his parents returned to Nazareth, Jesus was not with them: that wasn’t mild and obedient. 

 

They supposed him to be with a wider family of relatives and acquaintances.

 

So they turned back and spent three days searching for him.

 

Mary and Joseph’s search echoes another search for Jesus in Jerusalem when on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to search out Jesus (John 20.15).

 

The upshot of both those searches is that Jesus is in the Father’s house.

 

The searching Mary Magdalene found him and is told by Jesus that he must ascend to the Father, to be, as it were, in his Father’s house.

 

Mary and Joseph found him in the Temple, which he calls ‘my Father’s house’. (Luke 2.49)

 

‘Why were you looking for me?’ Jesus answers.

 

The answer is obvious to any parent: we couldn’t find you; we were worried; we were scared.

 

The one who shows the way was not lost.

 

Rather he points the way to where we are all called to be, in the Father’s house, much as he did to Mary Magdalene at the resurrection.

 

Little do we understand the implications of this, and what it means for us as the Church.

 

That’s important as we celebrate today the Holy Family of Nazareth.

 

They’re not called the model family, or the ideal family, less still the perfect family, but the Holy Family.

 

To celebrate the Holy Family is to celebrate what family life is, and why it is so significant and important, because it is the crucible of holiness.

 

The family is the place where our character is forged, for good or ill; the wider family, at its best, gives us scope to stretch our wings in discovering who we are; the widest family of all – the Church - is the place where we bring who we are into relationship with other brothers and sisters to whom we are not biologically related.

 

It is in the Church family – which as we know is not a model, ideal or perfect family – but a holy one which shapes and forms us as Christians, true sons and daughters of the Most High.

 

The family which dwells in the Father’s house is defined by those who gather around Jesus, a family defined by fidelity to God the Father: “Here are my mother and my brothers!” says the Lord, “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3.34, 35)

 

This doesn’t cancel out his family ties with Mary, Joseph and his wider earthly family – quite the contrary - he extends his family, so that those who walk in his way can reach the same level of intimacy.

 

As our second reading put it, ‘See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are’ (1 John 3.1)

 

May God bless the families from which we come and together may we, as his holy family, dwell in the Father’s house all our days.

 

 

Beholding the Mystery

Christmas Morning 2024

 

Isaiah 52:7-10 ‘All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God’

Hebrews 1:1-6 ‘God has spoken to us by his Son’

John 1:1-18 ‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’

 

No one has ever seen God.

It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart,

who has made him known.

(John 1.18)

 

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Happy Christmas to you, as together we hear the proclamation of the birth of the Saviour, Jesus Christ.

 

Our gospel reading has just unfolded for us, in the most wonderful way, the mystery at the heart of our celebration of Christmas: that ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ (John 1 .14)

 

And the curious thing is that in that passage there was not one mention of an angel, shepherd, manger, donkey or star.

 

That itself sounds like a mystery!

 

But a mystery in Christian terms is not like a puzzle, an enigma or a conundrum, but rather something of the divine to be unfolded, unveiled, revealed.

 

You don’t deconstruct or solve a divine mystery; you behold its totality, for God reveals himself in beauty, goodness and truth.

 

The proclamation of St John’s Gospel presents the totality of the mystery to us: of who God is; what God has come to us to do, in human flesh and blood; who his first witness was; what his presence makes happen in a human life; and his relationship of love with the Father.

 

Go back and read today’s gospel, not just today but frequently: it is one of the texts we should all know, and even learn off by heart.

 

Those few verses give the most intense presentation of the mystery of the Incarnation, which means the presence of God in human flesh and blood, in a particular person who is the true light coming into the world, who, when received, gives the right to become children of God, born of God.

 

As the mystery is unveiled we learn that the fullness of God dwells in the person of Jesus Christ.

 

The mystery is summed up by the letter to the Hebrews telling us:

 

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (Hebrews 1.1,2).

 

It is all leading us to understand that if you want to see God, or know what God looks like then look to Jesus, contemplate Jesus: as John puts it:

 

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.’ (John 1.18)

 

This Son, Jesus Christ, says Hebrews, is, ‘the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature’ (Hebrews 1.3).

 

What Christmas does for us is begin to make visible the image of the mystery of the invisible God and make knowable the mind of the unknowable God, through what we learn of Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus Christ is not simply the teacher, he is what is taught!

 

God declares, ‘Let all God's angels worship him.’ (Hebrews 1.6)

 

And this is where all unfolds in our apprehension and comprehension of the mystery: the angels of God worship him and then, as messengers of the Most High, call others to that eternal worship that takes place in real time.

 

They start with shepherds, and ultimately call us all to come, to gather to adore.

 

Today we take our place in beholding the mystery afresh, with angels, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, with Magi, saints and all holy men and women throughout the ages.

 

‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth’. (John 1.14)

 

The mystery is no puzzle, but draws us close to the loving heart of our heavenly Father.

 

Come, let us adore him.

A Saviour has been born to us; who is Christ the Lord.

Midnight Mass 2024

 

Isaiah 9:2-7 A Son is given to us

Titus 2:11-14 God's grace has been revealed to the whole human race

Luke 2:1-14 'In the town of David a saviour has been born to you'

 

Today a Saviour has been born to us; who is Christ the Lord.

(cf Luke 2.11)

 

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Happy Christmas to you, as together we hear the proclamation of the birth of the Saviour, Jesus Christ.

 

We are drawn, tonight, in wonder to the mystery at the heart of the Christian faith: that God - the creator of all that is, be it visible or invisible, known to us or unknown - that same creator God comes to his creation fully, as one of us, and fully as himself: Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary.

 

This wonder is told in old, familiar ways that we know so well from Bible stories, nativity plays and Christmas carols.

 

Yet sometimes it is possible that the stories of angels and shepherds, inns and mangers can obscure the truth of what unfolded in Bethlehem that night which ripples out through the millennia since, down to our day, and beyond.

 

We can think that the account given by St Luke, which we heard just now, is quaint, reassuringly familiar or really meaningful because it comforts us.

 

Or we can think that the stories get in the way of the pure message of Christmas, as told famously by St John who declares, ‘In the beginning was the Word…’

 

But the point of the Christmas story, as told by Luke, is precisely to tell us that the mystery is found in the mess of human existence as much as in the majesty of it.

 

And it propels us on to learn more of him, and what he does in our lives.

 

If we go to Bethlehem to meet Jesus and then go no further - to engage with the rest of his life, teaching, death and resurrection - then we miss the point of the Incarnation, God’s coming to us in flesh and blood.

 

If we only go for the purity of the theory, for the esoteric, and miss out the human and mundane details, then we miss the point that it matters that Christ came in real time, was born in a real place and shares our human experience.

 

The celebration of the birth of the Saviour is not a matter of antique curiosity and warm feelings, but of the urgent, vibrant, transformative presence of the holiness of God in our midst.

 

Our salvation, our being rescued from human entanglement in that which is deathly, corrosive and corrupting - what the Church calls Original Sin - is not a cosy event or a bit of theory, but is truth worked out in the reality of the world in which we exist.

 

Just think of the world into which Christ was born two thousand years ago.

 

The gospel account of his birth is a name check of some of the most tense and unsettled parts of the Middle East.

 

We heard of Syria, annexed to the Roman Empire, some 70 years before the birth of Christ and governed by someone called Quirinius: Syria’s present government is unclear and less stable than the Pax Romana.

 

We heard of Nazareth and of Bethlehem, also Roman occupied: both cities now in the Palestinian controlled West Bank of the river Jordan held by Israel.

 

Jesus Christ was born in real time and in real places, where people live now, and where violence, tension, inhumanity and war abound.

 

The message of peace and goodwill brought by Jesus Christ is not warm story or pure theory but is incarnate reality, in other words, the presence of God in human flesh and blood truly meets the reality of the world.

 

If the Christian message is too heavenly then it is of no earthly use, and if too mundane then there is no capacity for us to be sanctified and made holy: the Incarnation brings heaven and earth, divinity and humanity together for the transformation of what it means to be human.

 

The human heart is still in need of salvation, of hope, joy, peace, tenderness and love.

 

If your love for Christ is dimmed at the moment, or on the brink of flickering out, then know that opening your heart afresh to him will enable you to know and feel that you are forgiven, healed, loved and saved from the chill of being cut off from God’s loving purposes: may this Christmas rekindle your love for Christ.

 

If our celebration of Christmas is to mean anything then in all times, and in all places, we should open ourselves, our souls and bodies, to the Divine Mystery revealed in the child of Bethlehem.

 

Our second reading told us that ‘the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people’ (Titus 2.11).

 

That grace is available to you, tonight, every day of your life, in the  mirk, in the mix ups in the misunderstandings of life.

 

Tonight the rod of oppression of our fears, delusions and conflicts that beat us down, is shattered and we are freed to be a people not walking in darkness, but in the light of life!

 

That’s what drew the shepherds to the manger; that is what the angels sang about; that is what we are invited to receive tonight hidden in bread and wine, yet present to us as we taste his glory and know his peace.

 

Today a Saviour has been born to us; who is Christ the Lord.

(cf Luke 2.11)

 

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