A hymn for and/or about baptism.

This goes to a fine, but difficult and obscure tune - I wanted to use the tune because I like it, but perhaps underestimated its difficulty for a congregation! Might work for baptism or for the Easter Vigil, or maybe to accompany sprinkling of a congregation - written in celebration of the dedication of a new font bowl.

In the stillness before God spoke words of creation

over water the Spirit was brooding in love;

and the water thus hallowed is hope of salvation

to a world where dry hearts wait for rain from above.

As God brought them from Egypt, the people of Israel

went safe through the sea where their captors were drowned.

Through the river they came to the land that was promised

and they drank from the rock in the desert’s dry ground.

In the Jordan all righteousness found its fulfilment

and Jesus was known as the Father’s dear Son;

in the promise thus given is life for all people

washed, watered and welcomed, with Jesus made one.

Praise God who gives water to feed and sustain us,

praise God for the rain to refresh every soul;

praise God who by grace will cleanse, fill and renew us

that made one with each other, we all are made whole.

Music: St Catherine’s Court, Ravenscroft’s Psalmes 1621