Celebrating baptism

從來都很喜歡聽弟兄姊妹在崇拜中分享他們將要接受洗禮前的見證。衷心恭賀阿Mie、（龍貓裡的）次子、和Uncle Mike! 給你們分享以下一段有關洗禮的文章：

On Baptism
Compiled by Richard A. Kauffman

BAPTISM beautifully conveys how Christ has transformed our peril: water is both perilous and life-giving; and Christ has transformed the peril of drowning in sin into the gentle, cleansing bath of salvation.
Debra Rienstra, So Much More: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality

THE SIGNIFICANCE of baptism is the objective fact to which it witnesses, the historic event of redemption and the present gift that it makes possible, embraced through faith in that God who acted and yet acts.
G.R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament

IN THE WATERS of baptism we are reminded that we are not born in a vacuum, nor do we journey entirely alone (although loneliness is often part of the burden). Being reborn, being made alive, involves being born into a community. So there are strings attached to this adventure.
Alan W. Jones, Journey into Christ

BAPTISM CONSECRATES us, and consecration is a conscriptive rope that takes us to where we would rather not go, namely, into that suffering that produces maturity.
Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing

BAPTISM CELEBRATES and effects the merging of the Jewish and the Gentile stories. A people with the law and a people without it, a people walled off from the world and a people open to it, become a single community, melding the legacies of both... This new status is a new kind of social reality, a unity that overarches the differences (Jew/Gentile, male/female, slave/free) that previously had separated people.
John Howard Yoder, Body Politics

BAPTISM IS VALID, even though faith be wanting. For my faith does not make baptism, but receives it.
Martin Luther, The Large Catechism

FAITH DOES NOT follow from baptism, but baptism follows from faith.
Menno Simons, Foundation of Christian Doctrine

WHETHER BAPTIZED as children or adults, our baptism signifies primarily what God has graciously done for us, and it is upon this that faith rests. It can be argued that the two forms of baptism—infant and adult—together express the full meaning of baptism better than each would alone. In other words, their meanings are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding

WHEN PEOPLE submit to Christian baptism, they die with the Messiah and are raised with him into a new life. This means, first and foremost, a change of status. … Once you are baptized, of course, you can try to shirk or shrug off your new responsibilities. You can pretend you don't after all have a new status. … But what you can't do is get unbaptized again.
Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone, Romans: Part One

Copyright ? 2005 Christianity Today.
This article first appeared in May 2005, Vol. 49, No. 5, Page 52 of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188.

想起多年前亞視國際台曾經播放過一套電視劇集，名叫《A.D.（全寫是Anno Domini，即我們平日用來說明「公元後」的簡寫，公元前是B.C.）」是根據《使徒行傳》改編的，戲味甚濃，聽說幕後人員正是《萬世救主（Jesus of Nazareth）》的班底。可惜在香港從來都找不到有DVD或VCD，電視也再沒有重播，幸好當年我把它錄影了。不知怎的，每次看到腓利替埃提阿伯太監洗禮的情境（徒八26-40），我都會感動得鼻子也酸了；想到罪人能夠回歸到上帝的懷抱，實在感恩不已！