The Way of Jesus Christ

I always associate the season of Epiphany with journeys. It is partly because when I grew up in York, every year York Minster had the Epiphany Procession – with two large liturgical Processions, the Cathedral Foundation in one Procession which made up the Procession of the Magi, and then another procession, the Procession of Everyman, made up of representatives of the City of York. Like a medieval pageant, it was quite an occasion – the Lay Clerks rather unkindly described it as the Dean’s Pantomime.  

Last Sunday, we marked the Feast of the Epiphany and celebrated the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem. This week we celebrate the journey of Jesus to the Jordan to be baptised by John the Baptist. An event which marks the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the beginning of the journey, which will lead to Jerusalem, where, in the words of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus will be glorified in the events of the crucifixion and the resurrection. 

In a couple of weeks, we will celebrate the conversion of St Paul, again on a journey to Damascus. Scripture abounds with these journeys, from Abraham the Wandering Aramaean,  Moses and the people of Israel journeying through the wilderness, the peregrinations of Naomi and Ruth, right through to the accounts of the first missionary expeditions led by the apostles and recorded in the Book of Acts. 

As we contemplate these journeys, we remember that the life of faith is never static. It is always on the move – "Such a fast God", says the Welsh poet, R S Thomas, ‘always before us and leaving as we arrive’. The idea of a journey provides a rich metaphor for thinking about our response to Gods call, the call he makes to each of us. 

Of course, not all of us will have shared that dramatic conversion experience which came to St Paul on the road to Damascus. Some of us may feel a greater affinity for the disciples on the road to Emmaus; slightly confused, bewildered, somewhat fearful about what the future might hold, recognising the risen Lord only slowly until the penny drops and they recognise him in the breaking of the bread. But then almost as quickly, he disappears from view.

The journey may be fast or slow, like running a race or a slow mountain-steep plod. But whatever the pace, it is worth reflecting on the fact that, for the first Christians, following our Lord was simply called “the Way”. 

I have two observations to offer this morning about following the Way of Jesus Christ. The first is this: the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord reminds us that the journey of faith begins for all of us with baptism. Baptism is the beginning. In the words of Thomas Cranmer, Baptism doth represente unto us our profession. It’s the point from which everything flows. At Baptism, we turn to Christ, we repent of our sins, we renounce evil. Our whole life is re-orientated, as we focus our hearts and minds on that journey which brings us towards a closer vision of God. 

Of course, from time to time, we get distracted again, things happen, we lose track….  That is why, when we come here week by week, we renew our baptismal vows. For whenever we say the Creed, we are renewing our baptismal vows. The creeds were written for baptism, to provide a summary of what the Church believed, giving expression to the doctrine of the Trinity – this was the faith into which those baptised were invited to grow.

But one more thought about this journey motif: over the centuries, one of the important spiritual practices that Christians have embraced is the idea of pilgrimage. Pilgrimages to particular holy places have included places like Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Rome, Santiago di Compostella. Here in Britain, Canterbury, Iona, Holy Island, Durham, and Walsingham, are familiar places of pilgrimage. And given the association of this church with some of the great Christian witnesses, Cranmer, Wesley, Newman – for many, this too is a place of pilgrimage. 

We may be familiar with the Canterbury Tales, that collection of stories by Geoffrey Chaucer. Some of us may look on them more fondly than others. But the stories tell of a motley band of pilgrims, from all walks of life, who have set out on a pilgrimage towards Canterbury, to pray at the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. And as they travel they tell each other stories, some rather more far-fetched than others. 

The consoling thing about Chaucer is that you discover such a curious and diverse crowd of people engaged in this exercise that you realise that these pilgrims are people like us – complicated, compromised, sometimes messed-up, fragile, faltering, mysterious, beloved. That surely is the message at the heart of the gospel today – when Jesus is baptised, a voice says ‘This is my beloved.’  Luke is reminding us that we too are baptised. We too are ‘Beloved’.

If you were on a pilgrimage to Canterbury in the Middle Ages, one of the things you would do to prepare for your journey was to stitch a large cross to your coat or cloak, a pilgrim cross. The pilgrim cross told others on the road and all the people you met that you were on pilgrimage. It was a constant reminder to the person wearing it that they were called to follow Christ. 

Of course, as we ponder those pilgrim crosses, we recall that in baptism, we are marked with the sign of the cross. While we may not have a cross stitched to our overcoats, (and given the temperature in church today, we might have been grateful for an extra layer), each one of us carries a pilgrim cross. And I’m sure, like those pilgrims of old, there may have been times when our pilgrim cross has not been quite as visible as it might be. But nevertheless, they felt compelled to set out on the journey, this venture of faith. What compelled them? What compels us? Perhaps as we contemplate an increasingly impersonal world, with its many hazards, we may, like the poet Thomas, recognise that we live in ‘an age in which under the hard gloss of affluence there can be detected the murmuring of the starved heart and the uneasy spirit,’ the sense that there must be more to life than this.

Today, as we contemplate our journey of faith, we are marking an important step in the journey of two of our young people who will be admitted to Holy Communion for the first time. They will rejoice in the fact that along with all of us they have been addressed by the Mystery at the heart of the universe as ‘the Beloved’. And in the course of this term, there will be opportunities for others who wish to be baptised and confirmed to explore what it means to follow in the Way of Jesus Christ. 

Let us pray for those taking these first steps on the journey of faith, let us pray for those exploring what it means to wear a pilgrim cross, ‘unafraid to reason, unashamed to adore.’ Just as our gospel reading speaks of baptism, so our reading from Acts reminds us that Confirmation is also an important step along the way. And because the rite of Confirmation emphasises the receiving of the Holy Spirit, we remember that we travel on the Way as followers of Jesus Christ not through our own strength but only in response to the abiding grace and generosity of God, which is given to us through the Holy Spirit. Amen.