We are thankful and delighted to be able to report that Hamid and Arwa, who have been enthusiastic attendees of our meetings for the last few months, were baptised on Saturday 26 September, amid much (online) rejoicing.
It was a Zoom service with just a few people, the crucial actors, in the hall and the rest of us online. After the baptisms, Jeff spoke about the meaning of what Hamid and Arwa had done. He likened their leaving home in Iran
and coming to a strange land to Abraham’s journey from Ur to Canaan, both guided and directed by God. There is a difference, of course: Abraham knew what he was doing and was responding consciously to a divine call, even if he didn’t know where he was going, whereas Hamid and Arwa knew where they were going but couldn’t, at first anyway, know that God was guiding their path towards a new spiritual home, with Jesus and with all of us.
A lovely feature of the service was that after it was formally over, both Hamid and then Arwa spoke about what it meant to them. It seems so right that those who are baptised should not appear to be simply submitting passively to something that we do to them but should be in some way actively
involved and give voice, by whatever means, to their thoughts and feelings about the step that they have taken.
For the rest of us, the abiding feeling was one of joy and pleasure in the sight of two people embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ and entering into a life-giving relationship with him, enhanced on this occasion as we reflect on the distance, not only geographical but also spiritual and cultural, that they have travelled to be where they now are.
Graham Jackman
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