St John the Baptist
1990 (Year A), 24 June / Pentecost 3
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
I suppose it’s one of life’s little coincidences which make families so interesting, but it will be fun for the parents of the children baptised today, to look back in 20 years time and be able to say to them, ‘You know you were baptised on the feast of St John the Baptist.’ ‘Good grief,’ their children will say, ‘If you’ve told me that once, you’ve told it to me a hundred times.’ So I hope that when they recall this baptism together it is with fondness and thankfulness.
Now mercifully, none of the three new fathers have been struck dumb during their wives pregnancies and certainly none of the children are to be named John, but it is, nevertheless, and extremely appropriate day to have a baptism – on this feast day of the Baptist – for there are many, many similarities between Thomas, Kiran, Cameron and John.
The task given to these children by virtue of their baptism is close to that which John felt himself called to perform, in that they are to announce the nearness of the Kingdom of God, they are to prepare others to receive that kingdom and to speak of what they see of God. And the vision which they are given and through which they are encouraged to perform this task, is that of a tender, protective father – ‘Behold your God... He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.’
Now the picture I have in my mind when I imagine the Baptist is of fanatical, perhaps half mad man wondering about in the desert, dependent for his life on the things he could find, dressed in unfamiliar clothes, eating peculiar food and crying ‘Repent, Repent’. In my mind I see these words bringing threats and violence because they demand radical change. They are words which bring conflict, dissension, anger and finally, so we’re told an appalling death.
But the words which John felt he had to use in his ministry in the desert are echoes of much older words, first spoken by the prophet Isaiah, and we heard them in the first reading this morning. They are not harsh and judgemental words at all. They speak of reconciliation, they are words of love. ‘Comfort, comfort my people ... speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned’.
In a few moments the families of each of these children will be given a candle and we will all pray that they shine as lights in the part of God’s world which has been entrusted to them. That they will shine there, to the glory of God the Father in precisely the same way that John came to bear witness to the light of Christ.
And their light will bear witness to the nearness of the kingdom.
It is the duty of these children, who will receive this light, and the rest of us to pursue the kingdom, to proclaim its existence and to seek ways to expand its boundaries so that others might be included, for this kingdom unlike earthly ones seeks to include rather than exclude.
At various times different people have tried to establish the Kingdom of God upon earth by violence. They were in error. No doubt those Christian emperors and armies were in the end well meaning, but the kingdom will not be established with force and misplaced zeal as our ancestors tried. The kingdom will be established, and the barriers which divide people, will be broken down by love. ‘Comfort, Comfort my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended.’
The children who we will now baptise are themselves living parables, for the kingdom of God was proclaimed by the birth of one child and was inaugurated by the birth of another, and citizenship of that kingdom is bestowed on those who become as children. My prayer is that Cameron, Kiran, Thomas and the rest of us, sharing in God’s creation, born again to a living hope, may gain the fullness of that kingdom where he lives and reigns forever. AMEN