Sunday Service – Baptised for you! (Luke 3 :15-17; 21-22)

Today’s Sunday sermon by Pastor Richard Chiu was about the role of baptism to believers in the Christian faith. Pastor Richard Chiu said that in our baptism, we are spiritually put to death on the cross with Jesus, and similarly raised to life so that we need not hence die the spiritual death for our sins. The passage that was used for the sermon was John’s baptism of Jesus at the river Jordan. Pastor Richard Chiu also explained the various allegories inherent in the passage. He pointed out that in the baptism of Jesus, the heavens opened. The only other time in which the heavens open was in the Great Flood of Noah, and that was the punishment of sin with water. I can’t exactly remember what Pastor Chiu said about the significance of the opening up of heaven, but he said something along the lines of original sin separating us, and the baptism of Jesus hence a reconciliation of God to man, and that with baptism, we find our identity as a child of God. Pastor Chiu also pointed out the Holy Spirit which descended on Jesus like a dove, and drew parallel of this with the dove in the story of Noah. Just as the dove’s return to the ark represents life, so is it with the holy spirit in our lives.

For today’s service, we had a special bowl of water placed on a small table in front of the youth congregation. Pastor Chiu told us to dip our hands in the bowl of water when coming up for Holy Communion, as a reminder of our baptism and our identity in Christ.

I like the songs that were used for worship today. In particular, The Great I Am and a new worship song which has the lyrics “Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life”. I like the lyrics and the emotive building-up tune of the bridge to the chorus of The Great I Am, which goes “There is no power in hell, or any who can stand, before the presence of the Great I Am”. I found it comforting to be reminded of the all-powerful nature of God. I find myself liking songs which describes God’s great and mighty power, and evil forces fleeing before him.  In fact, one of my favourite Christian song is the hymn Onward Christian Soldier, which features lyrics such as “At the sign of triumph Satan's host doth flee”, and “Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail”. I suppose it comforts me to know that God is sovereign over everything, even when things seems to be out of control.

Update : The name of the new worship song, as told to me by the worship leader today, is Remembrance by Matt Redmann]