It is always difficult I think for any Christian who has been brought up in the faith to provide a compellingly distinctive account of their own personal journey to faith and like most Christians who have had the privilege to be brought up in a Christian home I would similarly struggle to point to one life-defining moment when I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and saviour.
That said, there are very important reasons behind my decision to be baptised today and I am grateful for the opportunity to explain these to you now. For me, this is not my first baptism as I was last baptised, as the cover of my Bible helpfully reminds me, on September 24th 1988 at Priory Road Methodist Church in Milford Haven. On that occasion, it was my parents and not I who proclaimed their intention to bring me up and nurture me in the Christian faith. I am immensely grateful to them for all they have done to fulfil that commitment and would say that I do no consider my baptism today to in any way invalidate that essential covenant, but instead to be the fulfilment and reaffirmation of it by myself.
I have always throughout my life had an overwhelming awareness of the presence of God, of the awe-inspiring goodness of God and the centrality of his guidance to the prosperity of humanity. I have also since being a small child been conscious that in some way, unknown to me, he has been at work in my life. I think it is also fair to say that I have always had some sense of being held accountable before God for my actions and this awareness has often been at the forefront of my conscience in a way which was often not always welcome. This sense of inner obligation, incomplete as it was, was however important in keeping me in a place both literally and metaphorically where the message of Jesus Christ’s salvation could be conveyed to me.
Despite my inclination to commit as a Christian in times past, the message of personal sacrifice and absolute obedience was one which was distinctly unappealing to me and it is not until recently that I have developed a truly personal relationship with Jesus Christ; where I have come to accept my absolute dependency upon him for everything. Despite knowing him before my time as a student here in Oxford, it is here that I have come to realise that the requirement of obedience and personal sacrifice, and the necessity of being willing to be broken for others, is in fact not a burden but a great privilege to be celebrated. God has been utterly faithful to me in times of immense trouble and I have fallen down so many times in my life that it is inconceivable that I could be here now without his constant love having protected me. Looking back on periods of great worry and illness, times when I was in fact distant from God, I have often wondered quite how I managed to survive the accompanying trauma only to realise that it has been God shielding me all along. For me psalm 94 sums up my personal walk to faith in Jesus Christ:
“If the Lord had not helped me,
I would have gone quickly to the land of silence.
I said I am falling;
But your constant love, O lord, held me up.
Whenever I am anxious or worried,
You comfort me and make me glad”
In my time at Regent’s Park I have come to clearly see God’s plan for my life; in planting me in a Christian community which has nurtured me in faith; I have come to accept Christ as my Lord and Saviour and that is why I stand before you today, and ask you to join me in the waters of Baptism.