Baptised into stormy waters

Mark 4:35-41

Harry here is not yet a year old.

What were you like when you were less than a year old?

Of course, you can’t remember – although there are probably some people here who can remember what some other people here were like when they were one – even if that is a long time ago!

And those of you who can remember your children or grandchildren when they were one year old – were they the same as they are now?

I guess not.

Or perhaps we should consider a different question:

What will Harry be like, when he is as old as you are now?

And, what will the world be like then?

A glance over our shoulders gives us an idea of how impossible to answer this question is.

What was going on when you were one – and how has the world changed since then?

I think it is probably true that if you are old enough to answer this question, the answer will be 'a lot'.

For the world has changed a great deal even in the last ten years or so.

Technology alone has produced computers, mobile telephony and the internet.

A book I read many years ago suggested that information technology doubles in power and scope exponentially.

This means that it doubles in capacity twice as quickly each time it doubles.

So the same amount of change that took place between 0 and 1000 AD took place between 1000AD and 1500.

The same again between 1500 and 1750.

Then it doubled again between 1750 and 1875.

This not hard to believe if we remind ourselves about the industrial revolution.

Let’s keep going – technology and knowledge doubled again between 1875 and 1937.

Wars contributed to that, I’m sure.

But I also know that some of you here were born in 1937 – some of you were Harry’s age now, back then.

So in the period between 1937 and 1968 technology and knowledge doubled again.

It is our powers of discovery, knowledge, innovation and invention we are talking about here.

And of course in that thirty-year period, we landed on the moon and discovered DNA – big steps indeed.

But then, according to this theory, we doubled it again between 1968 and 1984.

1984, you may remember was the year that George Orwell had some ominous predictions for.

And then, 8 years later, 1992, and then 4 years after that, 1996, then 2 years, 1998, and then one year to 1999, technological knowledge and capacity doubled each time.

When means that in the year 1999, as the second millennium closed, we learnt, discovered and created more than our predecessors did during the whole first millennium.

What a thought!

And if you are a proud owner of the new iphone, released this week, to great acclaim and amid big hype, you will know that technology and the capacity to halve things in size while doubling their capacity, is something we almost take for granted nowadays.

We live in a very fast moving, exciting, and slightly scary world.

This is the world that Harry has been born into.

What kind of a world will he inhabit when he is two, twenty-two, forty-two or seventy-two?

Given what we have seen these last seventy years or so, it is an interesting question, which we can barely attempt to answer.

Yet, while we cannot predict the future, we must prepare him for it.

And while our schools try to do this, it is most important that we prepare him spiritually, as well as practically, financially and, indeed environmentally.

For while we do not know the future, we do have a sense of what lies ahead.

Environmental issues are not going to go away, and could change our world radically, even if we do rise to various technological challenges that will occur.

Cloning and genetics is a burgeoning area – this week we heard that Tracker, a dog who helped rescue people on 9/11 – a dog who has subsequently died – yet he has been cloned 5 times.

But while the world ahead is changing fast, there are some things that don’t change and won’t change.

And the most important one, is God.

God, who in Christ, walked upon this fast spinning, ever changing planet.

God who created the very ball on which we spin, and the sun which keeps us alive.

God who, ultimately, is in control.

Our gospel reading today reminds of this graphically, as Jesus and his disciples are caught up in a storm.

On one, immediate level, the story shows us how Jesus had command over nature.

This ranks him alongside the Creator.

Indeed, to those who were present and who heard about it at the time, his calming of the storm reveals him to be one and the same as the Creator God who made the sun and wind and storm and sea.

Which might make us wonder why a storm brewed up in the first place, given that he was on board.

But storms happen, don't they?

They just do.

Whether you have God in the boat or not, it is simply the way the world is, that natural phenomena occur, some of which - sadly, can have disastrous consequences.

Natural disasters are not God's fault, nor our fault.

Although it is becoming ever more apparent that the way in which we live and behave can affect what happens to our climate and our environment.

Although if we think back to the disciples in the boat, no-one suggests that their being caught in the storm is in any way their fault, and they don’t waste time blaming anyone.

You can imagine that today: there would be some kind of enquiry, as to how the storm arose, who advised them to take the boat out, what safety measures they had in place and whether they were fully qualified to go fishing in the first place!

In the end, after any disaster or near disaster, there is an enquiry nowadays.

That’s not a bad thing, but the disciples in our story today do not waste time and energy doing that.

Instead they marshall the resources they have and do what they can.

But it is not enough, so in the midst of the storm, they turn to the same person we should turn to amid our storms of today.

They turn to Jesus.

They rouse him and plea for help.

And he demonstrates his power and love, by stilling the storm and restoring peace and calm.

It is into the calm waters of Christ’s baptism, not the tempests of fear, that we entrust Harry today.

Harry, who is not yet one, and in whose lifetime will come great change, and perhaps not a few storms.

So in the waters of baptism we bathe him, as he becomes a Christian and as we welcome him into Christ’s family – into our family – we commit him and his future to Christ.

For we are all children of the same Heavenly Father, whether we are one, or ninety-one.

And whether there be storms or calm, in all events we look to Jesus, the Captain and Saviour of our souls.

To whom be all worship, honour and praise, now and all our days, Amen.

The Reverend Gordon Giles, St Mary Magdalene, Enfield, 21/6/09