Francis and Helen, Euan and Eve your family and friends, welcome to church today, to your darling infant’s daughter’s/sister’s baptism. It is lovely to have you with us. I and the church here at Crook hope you have a happy and memorable day.
When I visited you both, Francis and Helen, at your lovely home in Roddymoor and Helen told me of Isla’s medical history and of your own I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude and thankfulness to God for the safe delivery of Isla, as I am sure you did too, for Helen’s recovery from hours of surgery; thankful too for the skills of surgeons and theatre staff at the RVI, thankful to the nursing staff on the intensive care baby unit, thankful for our wonderful NHS, free at the point of delivery, if that isn’t too much of a pun. You have a miracle baby, Francis and Helen you are an amazing and very brave couple, you now have the joy and happiness of bringing up Isla, with Evie and Euan.
Today is a good day. We need to remember the good times. In a nutshell, Helen and Isla through baptism have been made children of God’s grace, have become members of the Church. Helen and Isa has been baptised as Christians. This ceremony has obligations foremost of which is to live the Christian life. Helen and Isla’s baptism this morning is a sign of God’s promise to them both as Christians that he will be with Helen and Isla and their family forever. But more than that. God will love them both forever, until the end of time.
There will, as in all families, be darker moments when everything seems to be falling apart. We remember today the grieving mothers of the 22 Belgium and Dutch children killed in a coach crash in a Switzerland, the 6 mothers of British soldiers who died in Kandahar Province last week, last Saturday would have been the 21st birthday of Corporal Jake Hartley; Private Anthony Frampton’s last Facebook posting deserves at least a moment of reflection today for its depth: “I’ll be fine mum. Trust Me”.
When we are keenly aware of hardship, today we launch the church appeal for food bags it can be too easy to forget that there have been good times as well. So these good experiences today, etched on the memory, can support you both, Helen and Francis. You probably won’t be able to recall how you felt. Emotions pass. But you can hold on to the memories and be refreshed and revived.
Francis and Helen – God is committed to the flourishing, well being and happiness of your family, you have embarked on this great baptismal journey of love, not only of loving each other but of loving Isla. As parents you are going to be a sign, an electric spark to Isla of what human love is like, you are going to be the role models of what God’s love is like. Having five children on my own you I can assure you will be in for some challenging times and experiences. Isla may not need a media bedsit where she will have her own TV, internet, game consoles and a new apple iphone. But she will need you to be there for her, to support her, to sit at the poolside during swimming lessons, to listen to her play a musical instrument, to help with the maths homework, to let her borrow your car for the first time. You are going to be signs of love for Isla.
Frances and Helen. You are surrounded by loving families with offers of help and support, sleep-overs, shopping, grandparents. Use them. We as a church are here to help you too, our doors are open, you have our telephone numbers, we too can provide help and support, education and teenage training. Alas human beings live in a world of good and bad and that makes our lives and relationships painful and complicated but not so with God. God will never give up on you, even if you run away from him. Francis and Helen, never stop loving each other - you are for Isla what human love and family life is like and can be for the rest of her life – she will learn from you, you will be her example.
And in all this we, as we are able, together, the church will do everything possible to keep our promises to love, help and support you.
Let us remember today we should that we have cause for thanksgiving – God has committed himself yet again to one more human family, the Kealey family here from Poplar Terrace, Roddymoor, and in the lives of this lovely family with whom today we join in celebration, we see the sign of God’s embracing, renewing vision of God’s faithful love.
Francis and Helen, may God bless you and your family on your journey of faith.
Amen
Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit
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