Receive the Holy Spirit

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles Peter addressed the crowd of people around him and said, "Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made Jesus both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." 

Jesus had been crucified and raised from the dead.  The Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities had executed him, but with the resurrection they were, as we are told, “cut to the heart.”  In other words, they were stunned, stricken with the realization of their responsibility for what had happened.  They then asked Peter, “What should we do?”

Peter said to them, "’Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  They were to make a radical change of heart, to turn toward a new direction in their lives by serving the living God.  Their sins would be forgiven and they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit as promised by God.  The promise was for them, for their children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him’…. So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.”

Today we are not adding three thousand new people to the household of God, but we are baptizing seven young people and toddlers into the Christian community, the Church.  Baptism is our response to the invitation of the Gospel.  It is the initiation rite into full membership in the Church, and, in the case of infants, a time for giving a child his or her name.

By the sacrament of baptism (a sacrament is an outward and visible sign, water, of an inward and spiritual grace, the gift of God's Spirit) we place ourselves as Christians, and those we baptize, within a particular history.  We take on the historical identity of the Jewish and Christian traditions and pledge to work for justice, peace, love and reconciliation of all people with one another and with God.

In the service of Holy Baptism parents and God-parents along with the whole congregation pledge to be responsible for seeing that these children are brought up in the Christian faith and life.  It is through prayer and the witness of all of our own lives that our children are enabled to grow into the full stature of Christ.  This means that they will become responsible adults, living their lives by caring for others, working for peace and justice among all people, and respecting the dignity of every human being.

We heard in today’s Gospel from Luke that “On the first day of the week, two of Jesus' followers were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.  And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?"

Along the way they discussed the events that had happened on Easter Day and referred to what some of the women in their group had discovered when they visited the tomb where Jesus had been buried.   His body was not there, and the women reported, “they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.”   

Jesus’ followers still did not recognize him, so Jesus then, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets… interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.”  When they got closer to Emmaus, the village where they were going, they issued an invitation, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over."  They sat at the table for supper, and Jesus “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”  Only then were their eyes opened.  They recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.  They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"  Later that evening when they returned to Jerusalem “they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

In this story about Jesus’ followers going to Emmaus Jesus wanted them to understand that his life fulfilled what was in the Scriptures from the time of Moses through all the days of the prophets.  At supper that evening when Jesus “took bread, blessed and broke it” they developed a deeper knowledge about who Jesus really is.  He is the Christ, the anointed Messiah, the Son of God.

What this story means for us today, especially as we baptize these young persons, is that in our prayers and celebration of the Eucharist we recall all that God has done for us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Whenever we come together to worship, to break bread, to offer thanks, and to drink from the cup, we proclaim our commitment and loyalty to God.  We pray that God will “sanctify us that we may faithfully receive his holy Sacrament, and serve him in unity, constancy, and peace; and at the last day bring us with all the saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.”  Amen.