What a Day to be baptised! As I write, the world-wide Anglican community prepares for its annual celebration of Trinity Sunday. We remind ourselves again of a wonderful mystery: God has made himself known to humankind as one unseen, divine and eternal Creator, but as three (tri-) Persons - ‘Father’, ‘Son and ‘Holy Spirit’. I’m also preparing for and looking forward to the baptism of a child – as part of the same Trinity Sunday ‘Family Service’. But, oh dear, how lightly and presumptuously most of us regard our baptism, our ‘christening’! Nevertheless, I’ll try my best in the service to emphasise that baptism is God’s way of generously welcoming us to live life as God longs us to do. Each sincere and faithful follower of Jesus, the Jesus who was and is himself ‘God-with-us’, a true and unique human Person, is taught also to trust God as a loving ‘Father’. Our Father in ‘heaven’ that is, in that unseen dimension of reality which, if we did but know it, is so close to us. And ever since Jesus withdrew his visible presence from us, God our Father has given the gift of his Holy Spirit - who is also ‘God-with-us’ now, an inner creative Personal presence of new animating life. Now here’s the wonder of wonders. When someone is baptised in the name of God – the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit – by that means God extends a welcome by name to that individual, a welcome to live with his help a deeper God-given life that can have no end. But suppose I make light of that welcome and, despite having once been baptised, live in a negligent and heedless way? God is amazingly patient, but no-one can be sure for how long. Perhaps this year could be the year each baptised person in our parishes decides on new priorities. The Rev’d Dr Richard Hines richard.hines@outlook.com (01945) 587742
Windsor Reflections I woke at dawn one chilly January morning in a luxurious bedroom where the evening before a maid had knocked at the door asking if she might close my curtains for me and turn back the bed cover. She also, I later noticed, left me a beautifully wrapped dark chocolate on the pillow. I woke that next wintry day to the fabulous sight of the snow-dusted round tower of a castle. I was a privileged guest at St George’s House, part of Windsor Castle, a residential study centre established by the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. To this day, St George’s remains a place where people from widely different backgrounds gather together to grapple with issues pertinent to our contemporary world. There’s nothing so stimulating as thinking out with others the implications of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and of his teaching and his example. But we all do well to heed the gentle rebuke of Jesus to Thomas, the doubting disciple, who declared he would not believe until he had seen the risen Jesus for himself. Later Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ During this Eastertide, as we continue to give thanks to God for the long and fruitful life of Prince Philip, let us also carry in our hearts our dear Queen Elizabeth – not only as someone who, together with her family, now passes through the lonely and numbing experience of personal loss and grief – but also as someone who ‘came to believe’, and whose life and words have so regularly commended to others an unshakeable conviction about the truth and reality of the risen Lord and God, Jesus Christ. The Rev’d Dr Richard Hines richard.hines@outlook.com (01945) 587742
