- Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 and Psalm 124 OR
- Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29 and Psalm 19:7-14
- James 5:13-20
- Mark 9:38-50
Thoughts On The Word:
This week our family got to celebrate something wonderful. Today our 5 year old girl was baptised, at her own request into the Kingdom of God.
You might wonder how this fits with today’s readings… Well the key message we should take from our Gospel reading for today is that we should allow nothing to stand in the way of us entering and staying in the Kingdom of God, and that we should let nothing we do cause others to stumble and lose there own opportunity for citizenship in the Kingdom.
Many may wonder why, if we decided against infant baptism did we allow our daughter to be baptised as a 5 year old, when she would still have a relatively elemental understanding of what it means. Well a big part of it was because she expressed a desire to do it! She wanted to be baptised, and what right do my wife and I have to erect a barrier between her and the Kingdom? Her perception of what she did today is that she told God that she loves Him too, and that she wants to be a part of His family, and that the baptism was a way of being welcomed officially into that family. What a wonderfully simple and yet profound understanding of the sacrament!
Given the big day and the preparation for it this week, I have very little else to offer this week. I ask that you simply reflect on Jesus’ words in the Gospel and ask yourself, are you holding yourself or someone else back from the Kingdom? Why? … If you have an answer for why, there is a good chance you should ‘hang a millstone around it and cast it into the sea’… or maybe just make the conscious decision to put the kingdom first.
God bless.
Daryl.
How exciting for you all 🙂