Always listen to the way people describe their faith life. They will all say they believe in God – but what does that mean?
The downside of working through the church way of doing things is that we do all the right things but may lack a living connection with the living God. In other words, our religious identity comes from ceremonies that we have gone through but not from a living, vibrant connection with the living God.
Our Christiaan religion wants to lead each person to an adult faith. Not one based on how we as an individual define our religion but rather from a living connection and walking with the Holy Spirit living and working in our lives.
We want to bring, as fellow travellers on this pilgrimage of faith, each person to a livmg encounter with the risen Christ and allow Christ to shape their lives, their prayer and their service of the poor. If we make the comparison to your mother: she may not have been able to explain too well what it means to be a mother, but she sure could live it! As a child you never doubted that she knew what she was doing.
God broke into the life of Jesus to reveal his place and role in the plan of God. In the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, the heavens open up and revelation comes to Jesus, “ And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased” (Lk. 3,22).”
Just as God choose Jesus and missioned him in these words, “My beloved Son” so now each believer must hear that same call, to be the beloved of God.
This is where the common, everyday understanding of what baptism means has wandered off the path.
To be baptized (it is a lifetime journey) is to enter into the mission and working of Jesus Christ. We are marked, chosen, to become the living extension in our place and time of the life and mission of Jesus.
Each one of us has a special mission from God. If we are a parent, or grandparent, this is where we a being sent to make real the mercy and the love o f God. Just as Jesus brought healing to the poor and the wounded, acceptance to the people who get pushed aside to the margins, so now we are to become the healing hands of Jesus. Jesus is to be made real in and through us!
When you go to work each week, may your fellow employees experience in you a touch of the justice and the mercy God the risen Jesus. May they see in your words, compassion and mercy and acceptance of the differences that all humans bring to our work situations.
To be baptized is only real when it is lived out in the flesh. We want to help people live like the beloved of the Father and the chosen one of God. It is a long way of getting done as a baby but it is living an authentic Christian faith.
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