ISAIAH 42:1-9

PSALM 89:20-29

ACTS 10:34-38

MARK 1:7-11

 

Sermon – 1/12/03

 

“And marked as Christ’s own forever.”

 

      How many people here have read one of the “Harry Potter” books or seen either of the “Harry Potter” movies?  O.K., for those who have so far not been swept up in this cultural phenomenon, let me offer a few words about Harry which are pertinent to our agenda this morning.

 

      These marvelous fantasy stories are about a boy named Harry Potter who has unusual powers and a secret identity.  As a baby, he received a mark on his forehead as a sign of a battle in which he was attacked by a spiritual force of wickedness.  The force of wickedness tried to kill him, but Harry’s life was saved by the self-sacrificing love of someone who gave her life to save his; that love in fact protected him (as shown vividly at the end of the first book and movie).  The mark on his forehead – inflicted in an effort to kill him – instead became a sign of the remarkable victory over that spiritual force of wickedness.

 

      Harry’s secret identity is secret to him until he reaches the age of eleven because, after the death of his parents, he is raised by relatives who do not share his secret identity, or his unusual powers, or membership in the community which his secret identity gives him, but who in fact do their best to prevent him from finding out about any of those things.

 

      However, due to the perseverance of the community of which he is a part – membership in which is not dependent on parentage or ethnicity or examination but upon being chosen to belong – Harry discovers his secret identity.  He also learns that he needs special training to master his unusual powers, and he learns that the choices he makes are more important than the abilities he has (as Headmaster Dumbledore says at the end of the second movie).

 

      Hmm.

 

      In our baptismal service today, young Madilyn Grace Dombrowski will be marked with the sign of the cross on her forehead – with anointing oil, so it won’t be visible.  The cross was originally designed to be a sign of the certain cruel, evil power – indeed a spiritual force of wickedness – but the meaning of that sign has been transformed into a symbol of life and hope by the self-sacrificing love poured out on the cross by the One who gave his life so that Madilyn, and all of us, could be saved from eternal death.

 

      Hmm.

 

Madilyn, like all Christians, therefore has an identity as a child of God which will be unknown to some people and which some others may seek to keep hidden from her, perhaps because they are clueless about God, opposed to God, or are the kind of “politically correct” people who think children should never be taught the existence of faith – or that they should be taught about all the faiths in the world except Christianity.  All these kinds of “muggles” are in ample supply in America today.

 

      Madilyn, like all Christians, has an identity which makes her part of a community in which membership is not dependent on ethnicity or parentage or examination but on being chosen to be a child of God by God – and her identity will no longer be secret when her parents and godparents say “yes” in this service to that invitation by God.

 

      Madilyn, like all Christians, is given unusual powers: she will receive the Holy Spirit and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: “the forgiveness of sin...the new life of grace...being sustained in the Holy Spirit...an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love God, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.”

 

      Like all Christians, she will need special training to master her powers – training which continues through her life, especially since there will be people in the world who will try to tell her that she has no gifts from God, or there is no God, or that she really needs powers from a different source in service of a very, very different master.

 

     

 

 

Like all Christians, she will be invited to experience throughout her life – and beyond! – membership in a community which is not based on parentage, ethnicity or exam scores despite some people telling her that only communities based on parentage or ethnicity or exam scores matter.

 

Like all Christians, she will be invited to learn that the choices she makes are more important than the abilities she has in the face of those who believe the opposite.

 

Harry Potter’s secret identity was as a wizard, though as you can see there’s a lot in his vastly entertaining and often inspiring story which can be translated into specifically Christian concepts.

 

Jesus had a secret identity as well.  Of those alive when he became an adult, only Mary his mother knew of it until he came to John the Baptist to be baptized, in solidarity with the most humble and devout of Jesus’ fellow Jews.  Jesus’ baptism was the beginning of the revelation of his secret identity as Messiah and what that meant.

 

May today’s Renewal of Baptismal Vows [at 8:30] or recitation of the Baptismal Covenant [at 10:30] remind us all of our secret identities, and may we claim the invisible mark of the cross on our foreheads as the mark of who we are – and whose we are.

 

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

 

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church