Life Together: Part 1 - 'Baptism'

This Sunday, Simon Lace brings us the talk in the latest of our EBC services. We encourage you to reflect on the bible text and join us in the prayer that follows below.
 
Here are some questions to consider:

Readings:

Matthew chapter 3
In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said,
“He is a voice shouting in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming!
    Clear the road for him!’”

John’s clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey. People from Jerusalem and from all of Judea and all over the Jordan Valley went out to see and hear John. And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them. “You brood of snakes!” he exclaimed. “Who warned you to flee the coming wrath? Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones. Even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.”

Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John tried to talk him out of it. “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you,” he said, “so why are you coming to me?”

But Jesus said, “It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.” So John agreed to baptize him.
After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

Acts chapter 8 verses 26-39

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road – the desert road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means ‘queen of the Ethiopians’). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’
 
Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked.
 
‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
 
This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
 
‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.’
 
The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
 
As they travelled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptised?’ And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptised him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.



Prayer and Reflection:

Loving God, thank you for your endless grace and mercy. We ask Your forgiveness for the times when we have gone against You. Fill us again with Your Holy Spirit, immerse us in Your love and help us to show that same love to the world around us.

Amen.


Questions to Consider

1. What do you make of the act of Baptism? Do you see it purely as something we do to show our love for God, something God works through to impart His grace to us, or something of both?
2. What do you make of the idea of infant baptism (in which the idea is that the baby comes into God’s family through being ‘Christened’) versus the idea of ‘believer’s Baptism’ in which someone is baptized as a public declaration of giving their life to Christ?
3. Have you personally been baptized? Perhaps you were ‘Christened’ and ‘Confirmed’? What do you think about the differences?
4. Why do you think Jesus insisted on being Baptised?
5. Reading about Jesus’s Baptism, what do you notice about the passage? Who was present? What did John do and what did God do?
6. Reading the second passage, what similarities do you see between Jesus’s Baptism and that of the Ethiopian?
7. Given that the Ethiopian had only just heard the Gospel, and had apparently not had any special classes about Baptism, what do you make of what happened? Who was involved and what did they do?