Today is the second Sunday in Advent, a day when we celebrate the prophets in every generation who call us to a better future.  Prophets are not often popular: they insist on telling us things we don’t want to hear; they voice uncomfortable truths; and, most of all, they call us to change.  Just so with John the Baptist in Matthew 3:1-12 who warns of “the wrath to come”.  He baptises with water but he predicts a baptism of fire.  The fire is not punishment for our sins and failings, it is just the inevitable outcome selfish and unethical living, as those living through war and famine and flood know all too well.  But the fire of the prophets also offers hope: it burns away all that holds us back to make space for something new to grow and ignites our imaginations so that we can begin to envisage a different future.   John calls us to turn around, to turn towards a new future, not on our own but together. As we welcome those to be baptised this morning we remember (and we rejoice) that we are baptised into a community, a community bound together by the fire of the Holy Spirit, the bringer of life.  A community charged with reimagining the future.  A community called to turn towards that future.  A community sent out to live that future into being and bring light and life to the world.  

Holy Spirit Clapham uses ChurchSuite. ChurchSuite is designed specifically for churches with the potential to draw us closer as a community and make us more effective than ever in our mission work together.