Baptismal grace: Identity and Identification

In last week’s Shalom we said that our identity as spiritually adopted children of God due to baptismal grace is not appreciated by most of us adult Christians. Hence, we do not celebrate this momentous occasion of our baptism or christening.

How then do we recognize that this person I meet is a brother or a sister?

Last week I said that as flesh-and-blood beings we share a common humanity. So it is right to address each other as brother or sister human. This is our obvious identity. But we celebrate only our individual birth but not our commonality, that is, our brotherhood and sisterhood. Why not?

I think it is because we are not always aware or conscious that we came from the same Source, from God, our Creator and Father. This is a matter of belief or, more properly, inner faith.

This faith comes from the revealed truth in the Holy Bible, the Holy Qur’an and in the extra biblical revelations to the different indigenous peoples of the world. There is a very deep belief in human beings that they are interconnected by something larger than themselves which grounded in love which is called God, or different names but similar meaning. More next week.