Saturday, January 10, 2009

He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit

Tomorrow's gospel reading, Mark 1:7-11, includes John the Baptist's promise about Jesus:

"I indeed baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (v. 8).

There is more than the difference between percolated coffee and instant coffee in the two baptisms! John declares that Jesus brings a new dimension of change to the human situation.

OK much more can be said (will be said in my sermon tomorrow!), but on this site devoted to Things Anglican, this observation comes to mind:

Is the Anglican Communion, together with its affiliates, living in the Spirit? Do we Anglicans look like a fellowship of people 'baptized with the Holy Spirit'?

It's just that, sometimes in our wranglings and litigations, we look, however faintly, and however unfairly, like a fellowship of people that are not actually a fellowship, and have been drenched with a spirit which being no spirit of unity can scarcely claim to be the Holy Spirit.

What's to be done?

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