9/1/22
News from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ, 1437,
Egg tempera on wood, The National Gallery, London
Dates for your diary
Sun 23 Jan - services in all churches
9.30am St James
10am St Margaret's
11am St John's
11am Venerable Bede
Sun 30 Jan - Candlemas
11 am - Celebration service at Venerable Bede for baptism families
News
Candlemas - Christening celebration
Sun 30 Jan, 11am
At Venerable Bede Church West Road, NE4 8AP
Were you, your children, or another loved one, baptised (christened) at one of our churches*? Or have you acted as godparent for someone?
We are holding a service of celebration for all who have been baptised in Benwell & Scotswood Team Parish and you are invited!
Sunday service - change of time to 11am
From Sunday 23rd the time of our 'hub' service at the Venerable Bede will begin half an hour later at 11am.
We hope this will make it easier to hold worship in all our churches on Sundays and reach more people in our community.
This will last until Easter when we will review whether the new timings have been successful.
Worship Texts
The Collect
Eternal Father,
who at the baptism of Jesus
revealed him to be your Son,
anointing him with the Holy Spirit:
grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit,
that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Acts 8.14–17 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Gospel
Luke 3.15–17,21,22 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah,John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
Sermon
Revd Dominic
It’s lovely to be back with you this morning. As I’m sure many of you know, I have been off over Advent and Christmas following the birth of our second child on December the 7th, another boy whom we have called Isaac.
Now, it did take us quite a long time to choose his name. So long, in fact, that my Mum even gave up nagging us to tell them what he would be called! But choosing a name does feel like a big responsibility, after all we all carry the name we are given at birth for the rest of our lives. Or most of us do, some chose to go by a different name, of course, so it’s nice to have a middle name as back-up. We’ve given Isaac two: Benjamin and Aidan. (Aidan, of course, after the great Northumbrian Saint to remind him of his roots in this place.)
Some parents pick the name long before the child is born, which is certainly causes a lot less trouble, but with both our babies we felt we wanted to get to know them a little first, to see what name would fit.
It was much easier for Mary and Joseph: ‘you are to name him Jesus’, an angel tells Joseph in a dream. That would settle any indecision, wouldn’t it? How he got his name is one of the few things we know about Jesus’ early life and the Gospel narratives only really get going when we meet him again as an adult, getting baptised – as in our reading this morning.
We don’t get much information about Jesus’ baptism. Luke only tells us that he was baptized along with a crowd of people being baptized by John. Matthew gives us a little more information, telling us that John was reluctant to baptize Jesus, feeling himself unworthy to do so, but Jesus tells him that it should be done ‘in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’
Whatever did happen at Jesus’ baptism, whatever words were said, whatever actions might have been performed, we know that, just like us, her was submerged in water, that great symbol of cleansing and rebirth. Beyond this, however, much would have been different; no prayers would have been the same, no oil is mentioned, there would of course have been no signing with the cross and no naming of the Trinity.
One further difference is that none of the Gospels record Jesus being baptised with his name. This is something we always do at a Baptism because it is a very special moment in which God embraces a person, makes them his: ‘Christ claims you for his own’ as the Baptism liturgy says.
One thing I always do at the baptism of an infant is that I ask the parents ‘what do you name this child?’ This is partly so I make sure I get all the names right (a sensible precaution if one is christening a lot of children at once) but more importantly because their child is being given to God, being entrusted to his love, and we do that with the name that those parents have so carefully and lovingly chosen.
As parents, Frances and I have chosen our sons’ names carefully because we know that they will become integral to who they are. Not only this, but they will be integral to their relationship with us. As they grow up, they will hear us say their names tens of thousands of times: in ordinary circumstances, at special times; communicating important things and mundane; sometimes in frustration but hopefully more often with humour and joy and, most importantly, love. So, their names, when they hear us say them, come to mean something important – they mean ‘you are my son and I love you.’
Jesus isn’t called by his name at his baptism but he nevertheless hears from his Father that same message of love as a voice from heaven is heard to say: ‘You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ God is telling Jesus, his Son, that he is proud of him, that he knows and loves him.
This is a wonderful moment of affirmation for Jesus and it is for us too. You see God isn’t Father to Jesus only but he is Father to us all. Listen again to what we heard in our reading from Isaiah.
‘Thus says the Lord,
he who created you O Jacob,
he who formed you O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.’
We hear God telling Israel, and by extension us, that he has created us and named us, and that he loves us. We are his and we know this because he calls us by our name. God calls and chooses us all but not in a generic, routine, lumped-all-together sort of way. He calls and chooses each if us as individuals, just for who we are.
Of course, all of this is easy for me to say but it can be harder to believe. Some of us might really struggle to believe that God loves us and accepts us, that he is our Father calling us by our name and telling us he is well pleased.
This can be especially hard to believe if our experience of our own parents has been less than ideal. This is one reason why we always think quite carefully about the way that we celebrate Mothering Sunday – we know that, for some of us, celebrating our parents is far from straight forward.
There may be many other reasons each of us struggles to believe that God is pleased with us. Perhaps other relationships in our lives have damaged us, perhaps hard times in our lives have eroded our confidence in him, perhaps we have always struggled with our self-worth.
If any of that resonates with you, then please know you are not alone; many of us understand that doubts about God’s love for us, and about our worthiness of his love, are a normal part of faith.
So I don’t want to sound glib this morning in my message to you, I know that it can be hard to receive God’s love. Nevertheless, I want to tell you this morning that God really does love you. The words of our Bible readings this morning are for you. From Isaiah: ‘I have called you by name, you are mine’, and from Luke’s Gospel: ‘you are my child, my beloved, with you I am well pleased’. God looks at you and knows exactly who you are, knows all of who you are, and loves you, just as you are.
Amen.
Intercessions
To add names to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
Prayers for others:
Dominic, Frances, James, and the new baby
Donna Krol
George Irving
Alistair
Esther Kolie
John Nicholson
Alan Robson
Peter Wilson
Esmaeel
Liz Holliman
Joan Finley
James, Christina, Anastasia, and Xavier
Ali Zareie and his family
The Riches Family
Jill Sorley
Joyce Phillips
George Snowden
Claire Mozaffari
Herbert Agbeko
Edward Fraser
All those who are struggling at home or in hospital with Covid-19
Rest in Peace
Karen Petrie
Other intentions
Those preparing for baptism
Post Communion prayer
Lord of all time and eternity,
you opened the heavens and revealed yourself as Father
in the baptism of Jesus your beloved Son:
by the power of your Spirit
complete the heavenly work of our rebirth
through the waters of the new creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.