A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou ......

My licensing was a special occasion. 

The involvement of many friends, both old and new, some of whom had travelled long distances to be there in support was appreciated. 

The Bishop’s sermon was encouraging both for me and for the congregation.

The warmth of the greeting extended by local people was valued. The ceremony itself and of course the symbolism of the water, the book and the sacramental elements has special meaning.

It is right and proper that a new ministry should be marked and celebrated.  The start of Jesus’ ministry was marked and celebrated by Baptism by John the Baptiser and by the Dove marking Jesus as both the Prince of Peace and the Son of God.

Water symbolises Baptism of course. It is the element into which a new Christian is plunged and from which she or he rises to the new life promised in Christ and practised in the Church. For that reason Fonts are almost always placed at the door of the Church. Water is a deeply symbolic element. It was from water that life itself emerged. 

It is both a purifying and a cleansing element.

Just as the Derwent flows through the Derwent Reservoir and into the River Tyne, the River Jordan flows North to South through the Sea of Galilee and into the Dead Sea. It is both a boundary and a symbol of peace.

For Christians and Muslims it is the third most Holy place where Jesus ministry and His Son-ship was announced.

The second symbol that I received was the Bible. It is of course the source book for our faith, we share the book with our Jewish friends, as the story of the Messiah is told in both Testaments. Beginning with the people of God being called into the land of God’s promise and culminating with the developing story of the Christian Church as told by St Luke and St Paul and ending with the Revelation of St John the Divine whose book ends with the announcement that ‘in the end God wins’.

The third symbol was the elements that we use in the Eucharist. 

Bread and Wine is a symbol of fertility, of sufficiency and of completeness. As the poet Omar Kayam wrote: ‘a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou’.

Jesus shares bread and wine with his disciples and asks them to: ‘do this in remembrance of me’.

So Sunday by Sunday we bless and break bread, we bless and spill wine and we pray: ‘as the bread once scattered on the mountains has become one bread, as the wine made from the Grapes on the Vine becomes one cup, so gather your church together from the extremities of the Earth into your Kingdom.

On this feast day of the Baptism of Christ as his Ministry begins with the blessing of the Holy Spirit in the form of the Dove that left the Ark to discover the future possibilities of life for Gods people we each give thanks for our own Baptism and our Ministry under God.


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