THE LORD'S SUPPER IS A DIVINE KISS

'If baptism is like a wedding, then communion is like a kiss. It's the reaffirmation of love. Christ comes close to reassure us of his love. He comes close to kiss us.'

Tim Chester, Enjoying God, p.105.

THE SACRAMENTS

'...baptism and Communion are God's promise in physical form.'
Tim Chester, Truth We Can Touch: How Baptism and Communion Shape Our Lives, p.36.

BAPTISM & UNION WITH CHRIST

'...baptism signifies that the Christian life involves donning the identity of someone else and not simply improving our own. What we clothe ourselves with is not a new set of attitudes or practices but another person, Jesus Christ.'
Grant Macaskill, Living with Union in Christ, p.71.

THE SACAMENTS

'We believe that our good God,
mindful of our crudeness and weakness,
has ordained sacraments for us
to seal his promises in us,
to pledge good will and grace toward us,
and also to nourish and sustain our faith.
God has added these to the Word of the gospel
to represent better to our external senses
both what God enables us to understand by the Word
and what he does inwardly in our hearts,
confirming in us
the salvation he imparts to us.'
Belgic Coonfession 33 in Todd Billings, 'Sacraments' in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic (Edited by Michael Allen & Scott R Swain), p.342.  

WHAT BAPTISM TEACHES US ABOUT FAMILIES

'Our promises in baptism - as parents and congregation - signal that what counts as "family" is not just the closed, nuclear unit that is so often idolized as "the family." Thus, if Christian congregations are truly going to live out of and into the significance of baptism, they will need to become communities in which the bloodlines of kin are trumped by the blood of Christ - where "natural" families don't fold into themselves in self-regard.' 

James KA Smith, You Are What You Love, p.116. 

THE SACRAMENTS

'Baptism and Eucharist are the great sacraments of God's self-giving. They create, cultivate, and sustain the foundational unity between God and humanity that is manifested in Christ. These are the sacraments of our deepest identity, hidden in the self-emptying of God in Christ.'

Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land, p.15. 

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

'The examples of Jesus, Paul and Stephen shape Christian discipleship as a life in which suffering rejection is the likely norm. Christian discipleship is described as death to self and a taking on of a new life, in union with Jesus Christ. Union with Jesus Christ by faith creates a supreme bond of loyalty which is tested daily in the struggle against sin, the world, the Devil  and even when put to the test of martyrdom transcends all other loyalties. Not surprisingly, Christian baptism is a symbol of the offering of the old self over to death, which is what every Christian does as an identification with Jesus Christ. It is a kind of proto-martyrdom, with its act of testimony to Christ and the renunciation of the world, the flesh and the Devil. The plunging into the water symbolises dying and then rising to new life.' 

Michael Jensen, Martyrdom and Identity: The Self on Trial, p.5.