Baptised INTO Christ.

 Baptism at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Glanvilles Wootton.

On the 2^nd Sunday of Epiphany (18^th January 2026)

(Psalm 139; Mark 1:9-11)

 

The Gospel

The reading is taken from the Gospel according to St Mark.

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

 Hear the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God

 

 

Sermon

I think most parents will agree that when push comes to shove, what they really want for their children is happiness. You often hear mothers, especially, saying something like, ‘I don’t really care what s/he ends up doing, or who s/he ends up with, I just want him/her to be happy.’

Easier said than done I think, because if you then ask those parents whether they are happy, you often won’t get a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to that question. If people are honest the answer will range from, ‘most of the time’ to ‘not often’.

So, if we often don’t know how to be happy, how can we expect our children to?

I hope you will indulge me as I explain a little philosophy to you. Believe it or not philosophy is very interested in the whole business of happiness.

Philosophy talks about ‘Goods’, and by this it means ‘things of value’ – things worth having. It often splits ‘Goods’ up into 2 types: Instrumental Goods (means to an end) and Intrinsic Goods (ends in themselves).

I’ll use some examples just to make things clearer. Eating a nutritious, balanced diet, or going to the gym, is a good thing, but if you ask someone to think about why they do these things, they will probably say something like: ‘I eat well and make sure I exercise because I want to be healthy’.

So eating well and exercising are Instrumental Goods, because they are instruments, or a means to an end. Both are at the service of a Higher Good, which is being healthy.

And then you can ask why it’s a good thing to be healthy, and the answer is invariably something like, ‘because it makes me feel better’. Or maybe, ‘because I want to look good’.

And if we press on and ask the ‘why’ question again, the answer might be, ‘because I want to live longer’, or, ‘because I want to attract a partner’.

Pressing on even further we come to the end of the enquiry because the final answer is always the same.  

We want to be healthy and fit because we want to feel good and be attractive, so that we can live well and find love. And when you enquire about why anyone wants those things, it’s because it makes us happy.

And you can do that with lots of things. If you ask someone why they want to be wealthy you’ll end up in the same place. Ask someone why they want to be popular and happiness is at the end of that trail. Ask someone why they want to be tough, or beautiful, or clever or funny, and you’ll end up with the sense that the person thinks those things are a route to happiness. (Spoiler alert – they aren’t!)

So all these good things, like eating well and staying strong, are all at the service of happiness. Happiness is the only Intrinsic Good, that is, it’s the only thing that’s good in itself.

Happiness is not an instrument or a means to a Higher Good, it’s an end in itself. If you ask someone the ‘why’ question here, they’ll probably scratch their heads: ‘I want to be happy because I want to be happy, and that’s all there is to it! Isn’t that what everybody wants?’

Now the Bible makes a very bold claim to be able to deliver true happiness. The scriptures have a special word for the kind of happiness the Christian faith offers and it’s the word ‘blessedness’.

Blessedness is a special kind of happiness, because it doesn’t care about your circumstances. It’s a kind of joy and peacefulness that doesn’t go away when you are in debt, or when your husband has failed, yet again, to listen to you (!) A bad day, or month, or year, cannot take it away, and it doesn’t depend on your success, your beauty or your fitness.

But most of all blessedness is based on a relationship. It’s based on a relationship with that which never changes – God.

And that that’s why blessedness is a kind of happiness that isn’t susceptible to the ups and downs of life. When a person is in relationship with the Eternal God, and begins to understand that the Eternal God loves us, without ever changing His mind about us, life gets a whole lot more stable.

Lesser goods like status and power, and even health, wealth and human relationships, take on a different significance. Those things remain important (they are Good things, after all), but they lose their power to derail and dominate us completely.

Our first reading puts it beautifully. The writer says,

O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you are acquainted with all my ways.

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

The same sentiment is echoed in our Gospel reading too. When Jesus rises up out of the waters of his baptism in the river Jordan, the voice of the Eternal Father comes from heaven and says:  ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

This knowledge that God loves us is the beginning and the end of the Christian life. We call it ‘faith’. Faith is the knowledge that no matter what life is like in the moment, we are loved beyond measure by the God who sent His Son to share in our joys and sorrows, and to offer himself as a sacrifice for our salvation.

By bringing N to Baptism today, I hope that this is what you are asking for. And by bringing him here today, I also hope you are asking that for yourselves.

If you are, and you commit yourselves to a life that opens you up to discover the love of God for yourselves, in a meaningful way, then you are far more likely to be able to guide N into that discovery for himself.

That’s the job of parents, godparents and good friends after all.

May God bless you all.