Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer

by Rowan Williams

but a humanity that can reach out its hand from the depths of chaos, to be touched by the hand of God.

It means you might expect to find Christian people near to those places where humanity is most at risk, where humanity is most disordered, disfigured and needy.

If being baptized is being led to where Jesus is, then being baptized is being led towards the chaos and the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny.

A baptized Christian ought to be somebody who is not afraid of looking with honesty at that chaos inside, as well as being where humanity is at risk, outside.

So baptism means being with Jesus ‘in the depths’: the depths of human need, including the depths of our own selves in their need – but also in the depths of God’s love; in the depths where the Spirit is re-creating and refreshing human life as God meant it to be.

And the baptized are these who, going with Jesus into risk and darkness, open themselves up to receive the Spirit that allows them to call God Father.

Are we up to the challenge? There is a true sense of joy for Christians even in midst of troubles. Solely because of the fact that they realize they are following the footsteps of the Lord

a prayer that comes from places deeper than we can really understand.

‘If you take this step, if you go into these depths, it will be transfiguring, exhilarating, life-giving and very, very dangerous.’

We find it hard to accept it as a gift – yet a gift is what it is. It means that the darkness that belongs in the baptized life is never my own problem exclusively.