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In the pressure cooker of a rapidly changing world where it seems we are all somehow supposed to now not RECEIVE our identity but MAKE our OWN identity based on our own experiences, values, feelings and thought, what does define you and who chooses you to love?

And what about that Christian thing called 'Baptism'. Did that happen to you in your personal history. if so, so what? What does that say about who you have been created to be rather than what you are supposed to make yourself to be?

God’s Decision for you

Isaiah 43:1-4 and Luke 3:15-22 

But now, this is what the Lord says—
     he who created you, Jacob,
     he who formed you, Israel:
 “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
     I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 

I was baptised 58 years ago in the Spring, in a small Roman Catholic church in the eastern suburbs of Perth. I had only the word of parents, siblings and one small photo to show for this great event of God.  

I spent about 1/3 of my life so far not really understanding knowing or believing anything much about this miraculous intervention of God. No one taught me about it. No one reminded me about it. The gift was on the shelf gathering dust while I was going nowhere with no awareness of who I had been created to be in Christ... 

But, like those Samaritans we heard about, through everyday people of God in this everyday LCA, God made the gift come alive again. 

 For this other 2/3 of my life I often ponder what my baptism means now. I know it means that I have been adopted into God’s new community of grace and that have been called to play a little part in his expansive mission to gather all the world to himself.  

And so, I often wonder what God is really up to with the life he has given me. He seems to only reveal what he has been doing, what he is doing and what he will do in me and around me one little piece at a time. I suppose that’s why we Christians live by faith that comes from God’s Word, rather than by only what we see within and around us.  

Where were you baptised and how do you look upon that event now? Do you see that historical event as a gift of grace or something not too great now? Is your baptism something that happened in your past, or does it still keep shaping your now? Is your baptism something you often ponder, or something a little old and out of the picture now. Does that simple act that we have often seen performed here have much to do with the adult world of you, in all its complexity?  

There is great debate about what Jesus knew about his baptism at the Jordan by the hand of John.  

• Did he know that it would re-shape his life up to this point? 
• Did Jesus know fully that his baptism would signal the beginning of full-on public ministry? 
• Did he know that it would mean huge demands on his personal resources and his time? 
• Did he know that the baptism he received and the public affirmation that his Father gave for all to hear would make his whole life step up several notches in terms of service to people? 
• Did he know that baptism meant responsibility before God and to others and all the demands of living as God’s child in the often demanding, unforgiving, needy and dark world? I am not really sure.

 Faith says that Jesus knew plenty and yet he was fully human and immersing himself fully in our time. Whether he knew what his baptism meant for him or whether he only had a rough idea, it was what he needed to live his life.  

His baptism was his beginning, his seal of family membership, his identity as a person of God, his foundation for what lay ahead and it was a wonderful