Baptism

This year marks the 30^th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley and it seems that an increasingly popular hobby is Elvis impersonating ! Porthcawl has been one of the areas responsible for encouraging this phenomenon in recent times, and one of the most startling facts that I have read recently suggests that if the rate of growth of Elvis impersonators continues at its current level, then by 2025, 1 in 4 of the worlds population will be an Elvis impersonator !

You can imagine there are huge opportunities for businesses to grow up making and selling huge sideburns and glittery white suits, and training companies practising the various qualities that Elvis is remembered for !

And impersonation acts are nothing new – many people have made a good living out of impersonating people. One who was not so successful at it was Charlie Chaplin who, when on holiday one year, entered a Charlie Chaplin lookalike competition and only managed to finish 3^rd !

But anyway to impersonate a person you begin to follow and copy their behaviour and mannerisms. For Christians the life of Jesus is one that we are called to try and impersonate, and this impersonation begins at baptism when we follow the example of Jesus himself who was baptised by John the Baptist in the River Jordan.

In baptism we are symbolically covering ourselves with the cleansing water that Jesus provides for us, and asking that we will take a share in the new life that Jesus has offered to all people. In effect we, or the people who have made baptismal promises on our behalf, such as parents and God parents, are asking that we may become more like Jesus in our daily lives.

Now it would be foolish to say that our impersonation is a good one – there will be times when we get and do things wrong, there will be times when perhaps we lack the courage to stand up for what we know is really right, we will sometimes have to adapt to being followers of Jesus in a very different world from the one he inhabited when he was on earth, and that fact alone will come with all kinds of complications and questions, but in baptism, as members of the body of Christ on earth, we seek to do his work and share his love.

The reading that we have heard from the gospel of Mark (10:35-45) offers a wonderful example of this way of living to us all. Jesus said, ‘Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be the servant of all’ and then he continues, ‘The Son of man came not to be served but to serve.’

To share in the life of Jesus is to share in the true nature of Jesus – the nature of a servant. Now that word has often been misinterpreted as a title for someone who’s not as good as the person they are serving, but we are reminded here that Jesus himself came as a servant to offer his love and compassion, to fight for justice and peace, and to offer a new way of living for all people.

What a wonderful starting point we get if we try to follow those principles in our own lives. Jesus offered this invitation of his life as a gift for us, and it’s an invitation that we receive over and over again in our lives.

If we accept that offer of new life, it will have huge implications for the way we live each day. Some of these implications if we take our baptism seriously will be a promise to honour God in creation, in other words trying to look after the world that has been entrusted to our care, there is a commitment also to serve Jesus in other people – in welcoming the stranger, in offering forgiveness, in sharing the problems of others, offering real love and compassion to people, even to those who we think of as our enemies.

Being a servant of God is a not a demeaning task, rather it is a huge privilege of representing a God who pours out his love on each one of us daily. It’s a privilege that we rightly celebrate, and we pray that we may all continually grow into the image of Jesus, who came, not to be served but to serve. AMEN