Passing the Baton

Monday May 18th 2009 (David)

We had a great Confirmation Service yesterday. Actually we don’t call it “confirmation” anymore but rather “Profession of Faith” but its hard to turn that into an adjective. Four young people took the opportunity to profess their faith in Christ and the congregation all renewed their vows. All four were baptised as infants and at their baptism their parents took vows to bring them up in the way of Christ. In the service, each parent brought a lighted candle to hand over to their child as a symbol of handing over the Light of Christ. This was the first time we had done this and the emotion in the parents, their children and the congregation was quite moving. One set of parents is divorced but both Dad and Mom came forward – Dad has only recently come to Christ at the Mighty Men Conference. One of the girls only had a Mom – her Dad had died several years ago and her step Dad quite recently.

I saw in this simple ceremony of vow taking and receiving the candle, something of a relay race. These parents, despite much difficulty in the race of their own life,  have held fast to faith; have been a testimony to their children and have now passed on the baton. I have no doubt that each of these four will go on, confident in their trust in Jesus, and will, in due course, pass on the baton to their own children.

I preached on the characteristics of a citizen of the Kingdom – expectation (that God will act), faith (knowing His authority and power to do so) and service (our responsibility to “wait” upon the Lord). In Christ, God has entered in and declared a new Kingdom in our midst. He calls us to repentance (new direction) and reliance on Him.