Jeyanth & Maya

At Jeyanth’s dedication service yesterday, I gave a short explanation of why we were having him dedicated and not baptised. If you are interested, read on…

You may be wondering why what is happening today is a dedication, and not a baptism. So I’d like to take just a minute or two to explain.

Baptism is the symbol used by the Church to represent the new life that we have in God, the ‘life in all fullness’ that Jesus came to bring. And there are two great truths about that new life - firstly, that before we are able to understand, God reaches out to us with the gift of life, and secondly, that God calls upon us to respond to his love by giving ourselves to him.

Because of these two truths, both of which are essential aspects of the Christian faith, throughout the history of the church, there have been two great traditions for baptism, the baptism of infants, and the baptism of believers, both of which are found within the Uniting Church.

When we baptize babies, as we saw just the other week, we are using the symbol of baptism to celebrate the first of these two truths, that God took the initiative, and gave Jesus for us long before we could understand - long before we were even born - and that God continues to give himself for us as a parent gives herself for a baby - giving even when the child can give nothing in return. In this tradition, the second truth, the call to the individual to respond to the love of God, is expressed in the confirmation service, where the child or adult confirms for themselves the promises made on their behalf.

Sureka and I have chosen to follow the tradition of believers baptism, in which baptism is used as symbol of the response of the individual to God’s love. If and when Jeyanth chooses to be baptized, he will be declaring for himself that he wishes to follow Jesus. But in this tradition, too, there must be recognition of the first great truth, that God loves Jeyanth, and has given everything for him, years before he will be able to understand.

And so, in a service of dedication we give thanks to God for the gift of Jeyanth, and we, as parents, god-parents, and as a congregation, take vows that we, with God’s help, will so live together in the love of God that Jeyanth, and all the children amongst us, will understand and respond to that love.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2003 at 5:45 pmand is filed under Jeyanth, Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.