Baptism at St Anne's; carols at St James

For my first service at St Anne's, Stan was leading, I was preaching and Harvey was being baptised.

'Let the children come to me and do not try to stop them' was my text for today's service, a text set by the old Prayer Book for services of infant baptism.

Of course that passage in Mark 10 does not mention baptism, nor is it about baptism.

But it is about Jesus' attitude to children. And it is about the high value they have in his eyes. And it is about the fact that the kingdom is for them as much as for the grown-ups. And when you take all that into account, you can see why the old Prayer Book went for Mark 10 in the baptism service.

Some people object to the practise of baptising children because infants are not old enough to understand it for themselves, but, for me, that's the best thing about it.

I like these these words from the baptism liturgy of the French Reformed Church:

“For you, little child,
Jesus Christ has come, he has fought, he has suffered.
For you he entered the shadow of Gethsemane and the horror of Calvary.
For you he uttered the cry, ‘It is finished!’
For you he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and there he intercedes — for you, little child, even though you do not know it.
But in this way the word of the Gospel becomes true.” “We love him, because he first loved us"

I love the line 'for you, little child, even though you do not know it.' Truly God loves us before we love him - and infant baptism proclaims that.

SUNDAY EVENING and we were off to St James for Carols by Candlelight where Stan and I continued our double act begun earlier in the day with him leading and me preaching.

The musicians and singers did a great job, the church looked lovely by candlelight, the children performed an excellent Nativity, and wonderful reefreshments rounded off a really good evening, the start of Christmas proper.