My name is Dee Dee Haines and I am a U.C.C. minister serving with the Methodists in the Isle of Man, a little bit of paradise in the middle of the Irish Sea. The Island is rich in Celtic heritage, with rolling green hills, dramatic sea cliffs and a wind that blows like no place else on earth!

This Sunday when Emma Crystal Kermeen is brought forward for baptism, I will stand behind the font and pour out the words of the promise: “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” (Genesis 9:12b-13, NRSV) Falling from the lip of a simple clear glass pitcher, the waters of life will stream from three feet above the ancient font, echoing dramatically into the collecting basin below, creating an auditory and visual experience.

We will also speak of other promises and the voice from heaven declaring, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11) The children will be sitting on the floor near the font, listening to the story. Wide eyed and captivated by the words and corresponding actions, I will remind them that they are very important witnesses with a job to do. Emma will not remember her baptism, but they will. And they can tell her the story. Who was there? What did we do? What did we say? And a question for us all: How did this “doing and saying” shape us as Christians?

Both texts, the covenant story from Genesis and the baptism of Jesus, are the kinds of stories that come alive in the rituals we practice in Christian community. They are stories that are tied to memories and promises. Words of covenant are offered at the threshold moments of our lives: births and baptisms, funerals, weddings, confirmation and communion. They remind us of our distinct place in the world.

According to many anthropologists, our consumer culture is beginning to lack meaningful ritual. Author John O’Donohue describes it this way: “The commercial edge of so-called “progress” has cut away a huge region of human tissue and webbing that held us in communion with one another. We have fallen out of belonging.” (John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (New York: Doubleday 2008, xxxi-xiv).

On this first Sunday of Lent, many of us will have already begun a particular practice or discipline, marking the forty days as special, significant, different than those on either side. Some people will forfeit chocolate, or some other food item from their diets. Others may add a time of meditation or prayer to their regular daily routine. Churches have their own ritualized behaviours during this time of preparation. Preachers may want to consider asking questions about what we are "doing" when we add or subtract something as part of the rituals surrounding Lent. And what does it mean?

Whilst one reply that says we are remembering the sacrifice of Christ is correct, it does not help us to understand what that means in our life together? How do our practices form us in ways that are carried out into the wider world in the many places where we work and play? How does the season of Lent shape us as Christians who now live in a world where many do not recognise the season as significant? How do the other rituals in our life together, the official ones and the un-official ones, form us? How does what we do, and the way that we do it, shape the practices themselves?

Did the baptism and blessing Jesus received shape him in some way that shaped his experience in the wilderness? Does our memory of the rituals of baptism and communion form us in ways that will help us in making choices that are life-giving for all?

This is, I think, at least one place to begin.

(from www.goodpreacher.com/blog/)