The human family

When you have a new teacher at school there is one thing about you which he or she will not know, but very soon has to find out and remember.  And that is your name.  Each of us has a name.  If we did not, everything would be one big muddle.  If we wrote a letter we could not sign it, and if we posted it we could not address it to anyone.  So a name is a word given to a person to distinguish him or her from other people.

But, of course, things as well as people have names.  For example, flowers and shrubs and trees all have names but there is one name that covers them all.  Plants.  They all belong to the great plant family.  But there are other families as well.  Thus blackbirds and thrushes and starlings belong to the bird family.  Horses and dogs belong to the animal family.  But to what family do we belong?  To God’s great human family, and as soon as we are born we have a name in that human family – our surname or parent’s name, for example, Smith or Brown or Robinson.

Evil

Unfortunately this great human family, into which we are all born, is very sinful.  There is evil all around us.  Quite apart from the wars and fighting which break out in the world from time to time, people in our own district lie and cheat and hate one another and many have no use for God at all.  So, at the very beginning of our lives, we find ourselves surrounded by bad influences.

But that is only half the story.  When we were born, we were born with the seeds of evil in the centre of our own souls, the result of that time long ago when human beings first sinned and fell away from God.  As we grow up these seeds of evil come up and appear in the form of nasty thoughts and words and actions.

The New Birth

So we start our life with a big handicap, with evil in the world around us and the seeds of evil in our own souls.  In fact, as soon as we were born we needed a fresh start altogether, and we were given this fresh start when we were baptised.  At our Baptism we became members of God’s Christian Family, the Church, with all its good influences.  And at the same time our souls were closely united with Jesus himself who cleansed and strengthened us with his own life and power.  So our Baptism marked an entirely new beginning for us.  Whereas before we had evil without and evil within, we now have good without and good within.  Jesus calls this great change a new or second birth.  “…no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born (again) of water and Spirit” (NRSV, John 3:5).

This new start, of course, is even more noticeable in the case of adults who are baptised after having committed many actual sins.  By their Baptism, provided they are repentant, all their sins are forgiven, the past is wiped away and they begin to serve God in newness of life.  That is the meaning of Baptism by immersion or dipping.  As the person goes under the water, so all the bad in his or her life is buried and that person rises again from the water to share the life of Our Risen Lord himself.

The Catechism puts all this in these words:

“Question.  What is the inward and spiritual grace (of Baptism)?
Answer.  A death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness: for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace”. (1)

Born into sin means born with the seeds of evil in our souls (original sin); the children of wrath means that we were born in a state with which God could not be pleased; the children of grace means that, by our Baptism, we were given grace, the free gift of God the Holy Spirit.

This New Birth is also called Regeneration, which means the same thing.

Our Christian name

When we were born into the human family, we at once had a name in it, our surname.  And so, as soon as we are born at our Baptism into God’s Christian Family, the Church, we are given a new name in it, our Christian name.  When anyone is baptised it is only their Christian name(s) which is used, not the surname as well.  And by that name we are known in the Christian Family all our life.  So, if you get married, the priest will address you at your marriage by your Christian name.  When members of the Church die and the Eucharist is offered for the repose of their souls, they are prayed for by their Christian names, just as the Saints in Heaven are known, and prayed to, by their Christian names.

SUMMARY

1. At my birth I became a member of the human family which is evil in many ways, and I was also born with the seeds of evil in my own soul.  So from my birth I needed a new start which God gave me in Baptism.

2. At my Baptism I became a member of God’s Christian Family, and my soul was closely united with Jesus himself.  Jesus calls this great change a New Birth or Regeneration.

Reference

Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer.  A Catechism.  Available from:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/catechism.html   (Accessed 23 August 2010) (Internet).