Confirmation 2006

Eucharist in Celebration of the Newly Confirmed
Sermon Preached in the Chapel of Grey College, Durham University
11 May 2006

Romans 6:1-14
John 14:25-29

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Today we have gathered in our college chapel to celebrate particularly the confirmation last Sunday of three members of our college community: Gareth, Gemma, and George. Although it may not seem apparent at first, our reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is actually directly related this objective. Those who were also at the confirmation service will recall that we had one student who was also baptized as well as confirmed, and as Bishop Stephen Sykes said during the service, a baptism during a confirmation service is always an extra moment of grace and joy.

That is because regardless of what we believe about the gift of the the Holy Spirit and how it is infused into someone and intertwined with their soul at their confirmation, we believe even more firmly that grace is already at work in them through their baptism. Therefore it is particularly appropriate that in our reading from Romans, St. Paul speaks of what happens to us in our baptism, and the way that we become members of God’s kingdom and members of Christ’s body. This leads us to explore three specific points about baptism before we come back and see how it ties in with confirmation.

First, St. Paul says: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” This speaks to an important historical understanding of baptism which was in some ways more visible in the early church than in many of our own churches today. The early church, although not necessarily as early as St. Paul, recognized baptism as referring to Christ’s death because the process was done, as it was for Jesus in the Jordan by John the Baptist, by full bodily immersion. This process of going under the water and coming back up into life again can be seen as a symbolic drowning and being raised up to life again. Although some churches have always maintained this practice, many have not, but it is interesting to note a re-growth in its popularity, especially for adult baptisms even in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.

An unknown Christian writer known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Which I would observe is rather a long and involved name for someone who is supposedly anonymous.) who lived around the fifth or sixth century describes the process of baptism in his work called ‘The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy’. Although the ritual he describes is perhaps in some ways more complicated than what we might see today in a church, at its heart it is exactly the same and he describes how the person being baptized is fully immersed in water three times followed in each case by the bishop blessing them in the name of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The writer then goes on to contemplate the meaning of this process: “Join me in observing how appropriately the symbols convey the sacred. To us death is not, as others imagine, a complete dissolution of being. It is, rather, the separation of two parts which had been linked together. It brings the soul into what for us is an invisible realm where it, in the loss of the body, becomes formless. And the body is hidden in each and undergoes a change from its corporeal shape and is withdrawn from its human appearance. Now because of this it is quite appropriate to hide the initiate completely in the water as an image of this death and this burial where form is dissolved. This symbolic lesson therefore sacredly leads the one who is baptized into the mystery that by his triple immersion and emersion he imitates, as far as the imitation of God is possible to [us], the divine death of one who was three days and nights in the tomb, the life-giving Jesus, in whom, according to the mysterious and hidden tradition of scripture, the ruler of this world found nothing.”

So we are joined by baptism with Jesus in his death, and in coming through that experience, we are raised with him as well. This then, is the second point that St. Paul makes: “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Here we are being told that not only are we going to be raised in life to come with Jesus Christ, but that, through our baptism, we have been raised with him already in some deep sense. We are, in the words of the Bishop of Durham, “standing on resurrection ground.” This refers specifically to our present condition, not only to our future encounter with Jesus at his second coming.

The third point follows on from this because, in our present condition, our baptism allows us to be freed from our enslavement to sin. St. Paul does not imply that this means that once we are baptized we will never sin again. However, what he does say is that once we have been baptized and raised into new life, we have become “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We are now a part of Jesus and are somehow caught up and interwoven into his story. That means the we now are given the choice to follow Christ’s example and direct our moral efforts in the right direction: “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” That is what is meant when we say that our ultimate freedom is to be found only in following Jesus Christ. Whereas before there was nothing that we could do instead of sinning, now we are free to choose to try not to sin.

Where does this leave us then with regards to confirmation? One possible answer comes from our reading from the Gospel of John where Jesus tells us that one of the things that the Holy Spirit does is to remind us of all that we have been taught through our baptism, even if we do not remember the actual event: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” Everything St. Paul teaches about our baptism comes to us through that event, but at confirmation we are firmly reminded of it through the promises that we make, both with renouncing evil and sin and with proclaiming our intention to in turn to, submit to, and come to Christ.

So confirmation is an important milestone in our journey which is why the Church has recognized it over the centuries as a sacramental activity; an occasion where God’s grace is focused in a particular time and place in a particular person. Let us then congratulate our three confirmands on taking another step in their journey towards being in full communion with God, accomplished through the love Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Confirmation 2006

Eucharist in Celebration of the Newly Confirmed
Sermon Preached in the Chapel of Grey College, Durham University
11 May 2006

Romans 6:1-14
John 14:25-29

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Today we have gathered in our college chapel to celebrate particularly the confirmation last Sunday of three members of our college community: Gareth, Gemma, and George. Although it may not seem apparent at first, our reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is actually directly related this objective. Those who were also at the confirmation service will recall that we had one student who was also baptized as well as confirmed, and as Bishop Stephen Sykes said during the service, a baptism during a confirmation service is always an extra moment of grace and joy.

That is because regardless of what we believe about the gift of the the Holy Spirit and how it is infused into someone and intertwined with their soul at their confirmation, we believe even more firmly that grace is already at work in them through their baptism. Therefore it is particularly appropriate that in our reading from Romans, St. Paul speaks of what happens to us in our baptism, and the way that we become members of God’s kingdom and members of Christ’s body. This leads us to explore three specific points about baptism before we come back and see how it ties in with confirmation.

First, St. Paul says: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” This speaks to an important historical understanding of baptism which was in some ways more visible in the early church than in many of our own churches today. The early church, although not necessarily as early as St. Paul, recognized baptism as referring to Christ’s death because the process was done, as it was for Jesus in the Jordan by John the Baptist, by full bodily immersion. This process of going under the water and coming back up into life again can be seen as a symbolic drowning and being raised up to life again. Although some churches have always maintained this practice, many have not, but it is interesting to note a re-growth in its popularity, especially for adult baptisms even in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.

An unknown Christian writer known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Which I would observe is rather a long and involved name for someone who is supposedly anonymous.) who lived around the fifth or sixth century describes the process of baptism in his work called ‘The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy’. Although the ritual he describes is perhaps in some ways more complicated than what we might see today in a church, at its heart it is exactly the same and he describes how the person being baptized is fully immersed in water three times followed in each case by the bishop blessing them in the name of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The writer then goes on to contemplate the meaning of this process: “Join me in observing how appropriately the symbols convey the sacred. To us death is not, as others imagine, a complete dissolution of being. It is, rather, the separation of two parts which had been linked together. It brings the soul into what for us is an invisible realm where it, in the loss of the body, becomes formless. And the body is hidden in each and undergoes a change from its corporeal shape and is withdrawn from its human appearance. Now because of this it is quite appropriate to hide the initiate completely in the water as an image of this death and this burial where form is dissolved. This symbolic lesson therefore sacredly leads the one who is baptized into the mystery that by his triple immersion and emersion he imitates, as far as the imitation of God is possible to [us], the divine death of one who was three days and nights in the tomb, the life-giving Jesus, in whom, according to the mysterious and hidden tradition of scripture, the ruler of this world found nothing.”

So we are joined by baptism with Jesus in his death, and in coming through that experience, we are raised with him as well. This then, is the second point that St. Paul makes: “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Here we are being told that not only are we going to be raised in life to come with Jesus Christ, but that, through our baptism, we have been raised with him already in some deep sense. We are, in the words of the Bishop of Durham, “standing on resurrection ground.” This refers specifically to our present condition, not only to our future encounter with Jesus at his second coming.

The third point follows on from this because, in our present condition, our baptism allows us to be freed from our enslavement to sin. St. Paul does not imply that this means that once we are baptized we will never sin again. However, what he does say is that once we have been baptized and raised into new life, we have become “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We are now a part of Jesus and are somehow caught up and interwoven into his story. That means the we now are given the choice to follow Christ’s example and direct our moral efforts in the right direction: “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” That is what is meant when we say that our ultimate freedom is to be found only in following Jesus Christ. Whereas before there was nothing that we could do instead of sinning, now we are free to choose to try not to sin.

Where does this leave us then with regards to confirmation? One possible answer comes from our reading from the Gospel of John where Jesus tells us that one of the things that the Holy Spirit does is to remind us of all that we have been taught through our baptism, even if we do not remember the actual event: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” Everything St. Paul teaches about our baptism comes to us through that event, but at confirmation we are firmly reminded of it through the promises that we make, both with renouncing evil and sin and with proclaiming our intention to in turn to, submit to, and come to Christ.

So confirmation is an important milestone in our journey which is why the Church has recognized it over the centuries as a sacramental activity; an occasion where God’s grace is focused in a particular time and place in a particular person. Let us then congratulate our three confirmands on taking another step in their journey towards being in full communion with God, accomplished through the love Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.