All Saints’, Dorval
November 7, 2021
Serena and Coralie holding their baptism candles on Sunday
Serena Capplette has already been baptized once, in the summer of 1986, and it was about the most dramatic possible version of that experience: not only was she fully immersed in a dunk tank in the Montreal Forum, but the whole thing was broadcast live on CTV. Afterwards, Serena was chosen to be interviewed by Caroline van Vlaardingen. It was all more than a little overwhelming and embarrassing for a shy 15-year-old.
The thing about that baptism, though, is that Serena was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, and so her first baptism was in the name of the Father and the Son, but not the Holy Spirit. Since the mid-20th century, one of the fundamental things that all the world’s major Christian traditions – Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant – have managed to agree on, is that baptism is valid if it is performed with water, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is all that is necessary – but those basic elements are all necessary.
So here we are, celebrating the baptism of Serena and her daughter Coralie, who is just about the age Serena herself was when she was dunked at the Forum.
Serena had a lot of wonderful questions about a lot of things as we talked in the lead-up to this occasion, and understandably, quite a few of those questions were about the Holy Spirit, since that’s the piece of the picture that we Anglicans subscribe to and the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t. I did my best to answer them, but I know that my answers were only partial and provisional, because the Spirit is as much of a mystery to those of us who have been pursuing her and her wisdom our whole lives, as she is to those who are relatively new to the whole concept.
And that’s kind of the point, actually – the Spirit is precisely that aspect of God which reveals God to us, which makes it possible for our limited human selves to comprehend and relate to God at all, and therefore is responsible for leading us ever onward into greater and deeper truths. It would be a tremendous shame if, in this mortal life, we ever came to the end of the beauty, love, and goodness which the Spirit is able to reveal to us.
In the beautiful prayer with which we will bless the water in the baptism service, the Spirit broods over the water at the beginning of creation, and names Jesus as God’s Messiah at his baptism in the river Jordan. The Holy Spirit is deeply intertwined with the experience and symbolism of baptism.
And just because Serena and Coralie are being formally baptized today, doesn’t mean the Spirit hasn’t been active in their lives up until now. Serena has been journeying with God throughout her life, from her childhood as a Jehovah’s witness through her adult seeking and questioning. The Spirit was present and active when Rosanne Harrison invited them to check out Messy Church at the Church of the Resurrection, and when Serena generously responded to my invitation to serve among the leadership of All Saints’. The Spirit is present and active when Coralie helps out the younger kids at Messy Church, or participates in the Christmas pageant. We know for sure that the Spirit shows up when we baptize people, but her action can be discerned in so many other aspects of our lives if we are paying attention.
And likewise, of course, if our life of faith doesn’t begin with baptism, it doesn’t end with it either! In baptism, the Holy Spirit commissions each of us for ministry – to follow our own unique calling from God. In our family lives, in our professional work, in our volunteer and leisure hours, the Spirit leads us to seek out that which is loving and kind, fruitful and faithful, curious and wise, hopeful and helpful.
Our examples in this, of course, are the saints. The communion of saints – that “blest communion, fellowship divine” – is bound together by the presence and action of the Holy Spirit. In the marriage service in the prayer book of the Episcopal Church, this prayer is offered: “Grant that the bonds of our common humanity, by which all your children are united one to another, and the living to the dead, may be so transformed by your grace, that your will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
“By which all your children are united one to another, and the living to the dead.” We, those still feebly struggling, are united to the saints who in glory shine: by the bonds of our common humanity; by our baptism; and by the Holy Spirit. For us, as for them, God prepares the feast that never ends, where God makes a home among mortals and wipes every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more, because in our baptism we, like Lazarus, have already died, and so death can no longer scare us. And God is making all things new.
So, whether you were baptized eighty years ago or are being baptized today: the Holy Spirit is absolutely delighted to have you as part of the family of God. She broods over you as she did over Jesus in the Jordan, naming you God’s beloved child, in whom he is well pleased. And she welcomes you into the Great Work of the world, in which each of us saints has our own unique role to play.
In the short story “St. Zenobius and the Aliens,” by Jo Walton (who lives in NDG), St. Zenobius, a medieval Florentine, is welcoming a new crop of resurrected saints to heaven. This is what he says:
“You may have heard it called ‘worship,’ but we usually call it ‘the Great Work.’ Those of you who have a theatrical tradition on your worlds can think of it like putting on a great play. It’s also been compared to doing scientific research, and to the Renaissance. It’s our great work of art. Your life on your planet has honed you into a tool for joining in. it’s like music and like painting and sculpture and chemistry and cosmology and dancing and costuming and a whole host of other arts and sciences you may be interested to learn. We all participate in our different ways. It’s a performance, a great performance with its acts and seasons, a performance that began with the Big Bang, an artwork whose canvas is galaxies. … Come on now, all of you. It’ll be such fun.”
Today, we welcome Serena and Coralie into that Great Work, into the Communion of Saints, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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