Turn

This is the second post in a series on The Way of Love. 

Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by name, and loved by the One who fashioned us. Unfortunately, there is a very loud, consistent, and powerful message coming to us from our world that leads us to believe that we must prove our belovedness by how we look, by what we have, and by what we can accomplish. We become preoccupied with “making it” in this life, and we are very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our origins and our finality. We need to hear the message announced and see the message embodied, over and over again. Only then do we find the courage to claim it and to live from it. (Henri Nouwen, Adam: God's Beloved)

Since 1979, Episcopalians have been celebrating the Sacrament of Holy Baptism within the context of our Sunday worship, rather than in "private" family ceremonies. Like all changes, this one didn't happen smoothly and of course there was some resistance There is always resistance. But over the past five decades it has become our norm. 

This "innovation" was in fact a return to the earliest traditions of the Christian Church, where Baptism was central to understanding who we are and whose we are. It represented a turning away from the old life of sin and death and toward a new life of grace and life. The editors of the Prayerbook in the 1970s recognized that the whole baptized community would be served well with regular opportunities to remember and to renew their own Baptismal Covenant. The Sunday after All Saints (today) is one of the recommended occasions for celebrating Holy Baptism when there are candidates prepared for it and to renew our Baptismal Covenant when there are not. 

In the Baptismal Liturgy, the candidates (or parents of candidates) are asked six questions They are asked to renounce Satan, to renounce the evil powers of this world, to renounce sinful desires. All of these forces, internal and external, pull us away from the love of God. This three-fold renunciation is followed by a three-fold affirmation: do you turn to Jesus Christ, do you trust the grace and love he offers, do you promise to follow him? 

The Christian journey begins with this turning, trusting, and following. Every Advent we head out to the wilderness with John the Baptist and every Lent we listen again to the prophetic word that calls us to turn and re-turn to the Source of our being, to the Love that formed us from clay and breathed life into us. The more old-fashioned word is to "repent." 

We turn in order to accept our belovedness and to begin to live like we believe that. We turn, in order to get reoriented so that we can follow Jesus on the Way to the Cross, which is just another name for the Way of Love.