Baptism talk - Mark 10:13-16

Props—sweet bars wrapped as presents for the children.

1. God loves to give (verse 13).
In our reading the people knew that God, in Jesus, would bless their children. So they brought them to him. We can have that confidence too that God wants to give us good things.

2. But often human beings get in the way of that (verse 13b) and the disciples didn’t want Jesus bothered. And tried to stop them. But Jesus told off his disciples and told them allow the
children to come to him for a blessing.

3. God loves to give but the thing about gifts is that in order to be something good they need to be received.

4. Here are some presents for the children—imagine they are God’s blessing for them. (Give out presents - but don't open).

5. Now what happens if you never open them? Every year £68 million pounds of lottery money is left unclaimed. 1000’s of pounds of unclaimed parcels are auctioned off by the Post Office.
It’s crazy—but there are lots of people out there who are missing out on gifts they have been given but have never opened.

6. Baptism contains within it a gift to us from God. In it He gives us Himself. But like any gift we need to ‘open it’ as well as receive it. Lots of baptised people who have been given, never opened this gift from God.

7. But what is this gift? It’s God giving Himself to us.

8. What is God like? He is—the Bible tells us—love. When we look at Jesus we see the most loving person who ever lived. Everyone wants to be loved. God wants to give His love to us.

9. God is also perfect peace. The one thing you notice about Jesus is that whatever situation he finds himself in, he is at peace. Who else could sleep in a boat when there’s a storm going on
and the boat is near sinking!

10. God is also eternal, and by giving us Himself He offer us His life so that we can live forever when this life is over.

11. Love, peace, eternity, these are just a small part of God’s gift to us through baptism and the great tragedy—for me –is that so very many people are failing to understand, investigate and open this precious gift from God to us. Just think what they are missing.

12. Baptism is about God giving himself to us. Will we open it?

Now open your gifts and enjoy them. Amen.