We gather here tonight to do something exciting. We gather to affirm and honour this stage of Masoud's faith journey. We gather to welcome his entry into the Christian Church. We gather to pledge to uphold him, love him, care for him and support him on that journey. We also remind ourselves of our own baptism - the promises we made ourselves or the promises that were made on our behalf and which we renew every Easter.

Faith Journey

In our second reading we heard some of Paul's letter to the baby church congregation in Corinth. Paul reminded them of the practical results of their new found Christian faith. He wrote: "If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation….the old has gone". This is a wonderful idea to explore in a baptism service.

Masoud's faith journey began as a child when he was taught the existence of God. He learnt that God had sent prophets to humanity to teach and guide them. His own experiences, as he grew older, of realising he was gay meant that he struggled to believe in a God who could create him to be gay and yet let him live in such a repressive society. He struggled with self acceptance and struggled to love himself. Somehow God, who never stopped loving or guiding Masoud, led him to MCC. Here he found God. But he found a different view of God to the one he had been brought up with. He found a God who loved him completely - who loved him so much that Jesus was sent to die for him. Masoud found a God who had created him in the very image of God - and that image includes every aspect of his being. Masoud learnt both to be loved and to start to love himself again.

Through his belief in God, and faith in Jesus, Masoud has become a new creation. He has learnt to trust in God, and to trust that God wants the best for him. He knows that he is forgiven for all that he has done wrong, and that God is at work within him making him ever more the person he was created to be. He is a new creation and the old has gone. It has been a privilege to walk some of this faith journey with Masoud, to get to know him, to see him grow and develop, and to see his faith in Jesus get stronger week by week.

We are all new creations if we have been incorporated into Christ.

However, we all struggle both to accept that and to leave the old behind! In the Old Testament we see God re-create the Jewish people as they were led out of Egypt. It took just one night for the Jewish people to leave Egypt, but over 40 years for Egypt to leave the Jewish people. We are new creations - just like Masoud, but we, like Masoud, need to unlearn behaviour patterns, thought processes, ways of treating people and ways of treating ourselves that are based on the old creation. God gives us the chance to be new creations - we need to do the work ourselves through trusting completely in Jesus, and allowing him, through prayer, worship and spiritual discipline to transform us.

Entry into the Church

Baptism has always been seen as the way we join the Church of Jesus Christ. In the Early Church people prepared for a whole year to be baptised, and they were led, naked, into a darkened pool symbolising death and burial. The clergy were naked too; I am so glad that traditions change…. Incidentally that is one of the reasons we know there were female clergy in the Early Church as only men would baptise men and only women would baptise women.

The newly baptised were raised out of the pool and clothed in white garments symbolising resurrection and new life. Baptism makes us members of the Church of Jesus; it unites us with all the Christians in the world and all the Christians who have ever lived. It makes us equals.

But baptism is not the end of the journey; just as it is not the beginning. It has taken months and years for Masoud to get to this place. It symbolises what has been going on inside him for months and it brings to fruition the faith commitment he makes today. Sometimes Christians assume that Baptism is the end of the process; we get baptised and that is that. We are full members of the Church and have nothing left to learn.

Whilst Baptism isn't the beginning of a faith journey, it is not the end. Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations and to baptise them. These things go together. Being a disciple is a life long task. Baptism represents an important, vital, life-giving stage on that journey, but we all need to continue to grow in the faith, to understand its complexity, to understand more fully what God has in store for us, to see how we can serve others more lovingly, to explore the breadth and depth of God's love and plan for us. We continue to learn more about God, to learn how to become better and more effective disciples of the Lord.

Our Responsibilities to Masoud

In churches who baptise children the promises usually made by the person being baptised are made on their behalf by their parents and godparents. Godparents, traditionally at least, promise to instruct the child in the Christian faith and to bring it up as a Christian. Now we don't make promises today - we will make them next weekend when Masoud, and Tony, Amanda, Harry and Ash join MCC. But we do, by our presence here, pledge to share his faith journey with him and love him and nurture him on that journey.

As fellow Christians we pledge to love and care for each other. To help each other when in need, to pray for each other, to bear each other's burdens. One of the interesting things that I see happening in our congregation at the moment is how we are really learning to do that. We are helping each other in so many real and tangible ways as well as in just as real but more intangible ones. When we help each other get jobs, find places to live, offer furniture or money, lend a listening ear, let someone cry on our shoulder, rejoice in good news, spend time with each other, sort out computer or software problems, visit each other when ill, or do so many other wonderful things we are engaging in the task of building up the community we call Church.

An early writer about the Church wrote: "see how these Christians love each other". Baptism joins another person to the Church of Jesus Christ. It reminds us to love the newly baptised and each other so that the world may see something of God's love reflected in our own loving relationships.

Our own promises and faith

Baptisms are wonderful opportunities to remember the promises we made, or which were made on our behalf, and the commitment these promises represent.

" It reminds us that we are new creations, leaving the old behind.
" It reminds of our call both to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus and to go and make disciples.
" It reminds us of our responsibility to love, and bear each other's burdens.

Let's pray that as we baptised Masoud this evening, his faith will be a shining example to the rest of us to remember and renew our own commitment to live the life of the newly baptised. Amen

(Rev Andy Braunston)

This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.