This Sunday, the second in Eastertide, will be a special one: we will baptize twelve parishioners! If you've been to a baptism service at All Saints, you know these Sundays are high points of the year.

The Scriptures this Sunday helpfully orient us toward the purpose of baptism: inclusion in the Christian fellowship. We will hear in the liturgy a large portion of the first chapter of 1 John read aloud, which includes the words:

"We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."

The apostles were included in fellowship with Jesus--they were His disciples. They, as leaders of the early church, are keen to unite others into this life of discipleship, into fellowship with Christ. How does this unification occur? Baptism. You see, in baptism, we are not only united to Jesus, we are united to the apostolic fellowship, the Church. This is what we will witness on Sunday, disciples brought into the historic and universal fellowship of Jesus.

This is precisely why it is not only those being baptized who will make vows on Sunday, but the whole church. The entire congregation will commit, publically, to do everything possible to support the newly baptized in their walk with Christ. +Philip often says, "everything we as a church do, we do together." Baptism is no exception!

We will welcome the newly baptized into fellowship with Christ, and fellowship with us. We will commit to pray with and for them, to nurture them in discipleship, and to love them. If ever there was a Sunday to attend, it's this one!