Showing posts with label baptism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baptism. Show all posts

February 9, 2014

The Prayer of the Holy Spirit

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful with the fire of your love.

The Prodigal Son
The Bible tells a story of the prodigal son, or lost son.
Prodigal because though this son left his father's house, when he returned, his father spent lavishly, even wastefully celebrating this child's return. The origins of this word, prodigy-prodigal, are interesting. In the old English language, prodigy carried the usual meaning of 'omen,' a portentous event.
So while the particular Bible story tells of two brothers, one obedient and one flagrant and a father desperate beyond reason to reunite with the child who has left, spurning his family. The message is clear: once lost, now found.
There is a documentary recently produced by American Public Broadcasting System (PBS) about the lives of 12 people whose origins go back to the protestant christian sect, commonly known as the Amish, a community which believes in community first and always, as a necessary means of witness. They do sometimes nurture the lost souls who see to a way beyond the gates of their community into the wider American community. Leaving is not often welcomed by the Amish. Sometimes they are "shunned."
And yet when they do this, their family may still treat them as the Bible instructs, hoping, looking and waiting for their return, a prodigal child. The family sets a place at meal times each and every day their loved one is gone, to remind themselves of the mercy of the Christ when dealing with a 'lost sheep.' They, as singer Phil Collins sings, Hold On My Heart.

Parents, friends, and others in their Amish community remain apart from the ones who leave. Often they fear hell or damnation, as they understand it, if one lives among the wider society and their materialistic ways. The Amish, you see, highly value plain, simple living. They believe that the clutter of 'stuff' gets in their way and their conversations with God. So they eschew common materialism for the favor of the riches of creation, honest work and community.

The Amish, a breakaway Christian sect formed by followers of Roman Catholic Priest, Father Menno Simons in Switzerland during the counter Reformation. Their faith-ways led them to the relative religious liberty of America and a place in William Penn's Pennsylvania.
They are devout Christians, keeping the way of discipleship before their eyes; their way is independent with minimal hierarchy, no church buildings or seminaries, and a desire to baptize those who come forth willingly. Thus children in these families are church members if they choose it when they come of age.

In another story, the Bible tells us of a certain shepherd and a flock of sheep. When one lamb goes missing, there is an all out search to locate and return the lamb to its flock. This story, unlike the Prodigal Son is without comparisons. There is simply the fact of a lost sheep, now found.
In both stories however, we can take away the meaning that each of us is with value, each has his own importance, irrespective of any other thing we may or may not do in the world, because we are the love and the product of the Creator himself, who has loved us into existence, and means to sustain us with the very same love, the love poured down on us by the Holy Spirit.
So to you, I say, 'Amen, Amen. Be on your way.'


January 22, 2011

Come to the Water, Light to the Nations

The Servant Song
composed by Richard Gillard
Listen Here

Brother, sister let me serve you.
Let me be as Christ to you.

Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.
We are pilgrims on a journey.
We are brothers on the road.

We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.
I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear.

I will hold my hand out to you;
Speak the peace you long to hear.
I will weep when you are weeping.

When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we’ve seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven,
We shall find such harmony
Born of all we’ve known together
Of Christ’s love and agony.

Brother, sister let me serve you.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.

At this season, after the feast of Christmas, there comes in the Gospel story of John, the baptism of the Lord. And through this story we learn several important things about the infant who grows to become the Christ. First, we learn that the 'lamb of G-d' is then not a warrior, that in baptism the child is filled with the Holy Spirit of God, that the child is the divine creation of G-d. In baptism, the child is both interiorly and externally announced as a creature with a life in the Spirit. While many faith communities today find it fit to argue and debate endlessly, to schism and separate from others over the nature, timing and significance of baptism, both the Orthodox and Catholic Christian communities see fit to follow both the Torah and the later Christian gospels for guidance on the matter, choosing to christen or name a child before the Lord in its early days, after birth.

In the Book of Isaiah 49-52, there are the four passages about the "Suffering Servant" in which a servant whose identity is unclear, yet this One is to be chosen by the Lord for a particular service. He is not merely to restore the people to a faith, but to moreover be the sign of God's presence in the world. Thus over millennia, the Servant has come to represent both individuals and whole communities in faith. We are called then to be the light of the nations.

In baptism then, one is called in the Holy Spirit to a life of light. The baptized then live in the light, for help to all, to bear the load, to share in community the gifts which the Spirit then brings. Many are baptized as tiny infants with the faith of their parents, a constant light; others come to the waters of baptism as adults to signify that while they may have once seen only darkness, now they see light. Guided by established members of the faith community, the baptism is their exterior announcement, that they, the light of the world, have been made anew, given life by the Holy Spirit. For them, their eyes shine brightly; peace and joy is their heart.