Beloved of God, Sharing a Baptism with Christ

Matthew 3:13-17 Baptism of Jesus

It’s hard to believe it is a new year already. I, for one, am still having trouble writing “2017” on documents and correspondence. I’ve heard the lament from more than one of my friends, from many of you, and reflected in words coming from my own lips – “time really flies” – it goes by so fast. Over and over, there is that repeated refrain - “how can it be….?” – and then we fill in the blank – “how can it be … December,” or … “June,” …“a new year,” …“another birthday,” …“his high school graduation,” …“my baby’s wedding day,”  or, if we are lucky, … “our anniversary – 50 years”! Can anyone here relate?

We feel the astonishing passage of time here in church, too. Just last week, our gospel relayed the story of the naming of Jesus. The gospel gave us the story of the day when Mary and Joseph brought an eight-day-old Jesus to the temple for this naming.

So it is, that with a hiccup of surprise we realize that in our gospel text today, Jesus is now a grown man – some 30 years of his life have flown by. That’s thirty years that we don’t know much about – Jesus has grown up in the blink of an eye, or the turn of a page, leaving all those growing up years and the stories that go with them, a mystery to us.

But that doesn’t much matter, because the important stuff, the stuff that tells us about God, and how God is acting in and for the world through Jesus, is revealed through the public ministry of Jesus, and the scriptures are full of those stories – stories that we will encounter as we make our way through the gospels.

It is that public ministry for which Christ is anointed through this baptism we observe today. Right after his baptism, Jesus would go into the wilderness to prepare himself for that ministry. Even Jesus had to prepare.

Back in this baptismal scene, we read about the voice of God which Jesus hears as he emerges from the water – “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  As Jesus receives the Holy Spirit “descending like a dove” and alighting on him, Jesus is both revealed and acclaimed as the Son of God.

Reflecting on this passage, we might ask ourselves, did Jesus really need to be baptized? As the Son of God, as the blameless, sinless one, did Jesus really need this washing?

The thing is, as Jesus was baptized at the Jordan River, as God claimed him as his Son and filled him with the Holy Spirit, God provided for us what may be the closest connection between Jesus’ life and ministry and our own, making this a very special day for us, as well. Once again, God enacts mercy and grace for us through Jesus.

For, as Jesus invited John to take part in his baptism, Jesus invites him – and us – into the work on which he himself will embark, proclaiming and embodying the goodness and justice of God.

It is in baptism that we too, are claimed as daughters and sons of God. It is in baptism that we are blessed by the Holy Spirit, and filled with the gifts we need for ministry. It is in baptism that God tells us that we are beloved, and that our inheritance is secured; we are given new life and thereby we each become a new creation of God.

How does it feel to know that this thing that we have experienced in our baptism was once experienced by Jesus himself? For myself, I am simply struck with awe of this reality.

One of the most powerful experiences of our Christian lives is remembering our own baptisms. To hear once again the claim that we are beloved of God, as Jesus was; to remember that we are anointed with the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was; To absorb the reality that we are known and empowered by God, forever, is an experience like no other, and it is an experience that we share with Jesus Christ, himself. To be reminded that this baptism commissions each one of us into ministry in the name of Jesus is a holy experience.

And so, I hope that you got good and soaked as I came down the aisle with water this morning and “sprinkled” you in remembrance of that day when you were washed in the living waters of baptism. I hope that as you felt drops of water from the font fall on you, you felt solidarity with Christ himself in the remembrance of this means of grace we share.

Today we reflect on the sacrament of Baptism, through which each of us has received grace upon grace for the living of our lives and for carrying on the holy work that God entrusts to each one of us.

Although we are reminded of our baptism when we gather together each week, as we gather around the table and nurtured for our work as disciples of Christ, our Holy Baptism is best remembered and most explicitly appreciated when, as a community, we celebrate the baptism of a new sister or brother.

On such occasions, we powerfully recall that in baptism God made each of us a participant in the ministry of Jesus for the sake of the world. The importance and the reality of our baptism should never be far from our minds. For, as Jesus shares life, death and resurrection with us, Jesus shares the work and call of ministry with each of us as well.

Christians often describe baptism as an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace that God works on our behalf. It is God’s action that is of import here, not our own. It is God who makes us holy, not we ourselves who accomplish this by anything we do. It is for God’s sake, that we are sent to reflect God’s love as we are empowered, through the sacraments, for the work of God’s mission to love, heal, bear compassion for the poor, the marginalized, the unloved, the unaccepted, the disregarded ones who are part of God’s creation.

It is for this reason that there is but one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and the commissioning of our call as children of God and workers together for the kingdom of God. Yet Baptism is not a “one and done” kind of thing. In fact, it is the opposite of an isolated act carried out once in our lives for our own benefit.

As Martin Luther said, each day, in baptism, we die to sin and are renewed in the new life given to us by God.

In Baptism, we received the everlasting, perpetual declaration of love and pleasure that God takes in us, and the grace God repeatedly extends to us for the sake of the kingdom of God.

In baptism, we recognize that God loves us and is well-pleased with us simply because of who we are – his own beloved children. This realization frees us to live into the baptismal promises with gusto.

We are freed to live out the gospel goodness of God; to feed the hungry, to give water to those who thirst, to work for the life of all people. In the next several weeks, through the scriptures we encounter, we will learn how to share the light of Jesus by living as Jesus teaches, in humility, serving our neighbors and giving comfort to those who are hurting. Soon, we will hear from Jesus’ own mouth, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ recipe for living into the grace of God.

There are challenges in this, for sure. It can be risky, sometimes, to offer hope to those in deep despair, to those who look around and see only desolation in the world and in their lives. Through our baptism and the grace of God revealed to us in Christ we are bold to offer comfort to those who live in fear of terror attacks, and shootings, and disease and hunger, and the uncertain and frightening possibilities of what our future world might look like, living today in a world full of division, apathy and anger as we are.  

We live into our baptismal commission when, as the Body of Christ, we continually seek new ways to engage with our community and our neighbors to ease suffering and isolation, homelessness and fear locally and in places far away from here. Our baptism calls us to share in the goodness and justice of God. That means seeing all people, even those with whom we disagree, even those who look, speak and worship differently than we do, as sisters and brothers created by God and beloved of God as well and therefore equal to us in every way.

We are blessed when we remember our baptism, and reflect on the mercy and forgiveness showered upon us in drops or currents of water on that day and we are blessed by the Holy Spirit to live each day as an opportunity to rejoice in the daily death of sin and birth into new life and a new creation of God.

As a congregation, this year we will seek to intentionally and continually remember our baptism by engaging in prayer and bible study reflecting on the history of our faith, and seeking to discern God’s plan and mission for this Body of Christ in this time and place.

We will remember God’s words, spoken of Jesus, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased,” and we will recall that as these words shine a light on Jesus, that light is reflected upon all the baptized and all who remain close to him by following him and his holy word.

Please pray with me.

O Most Holy God, who blessed the world through the birth and revelation of Jesus as your own Son, now bless us as we seek to follow him, reveling in the gift of our baptism, and emboldened by your holy word. Grant us the wisdom and grace to live as your daughters and sons, washed in the waters of life for the sake of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

           

I Want to Be One Too!

All Saints Sunday 2016

O blessed communion, fellowship divine, we feebly struggle, they in glory shine. Yet all are one in thee, for all are thine. Alleluia! Alleluia! (For All the Saints)

When I was growing up, I was fascinated by the lives of the saints of which we sing today. In those days, for me growing up in the Catholic church, “saint” meant one of those people who indeed shined in glory, who had been canonized by the Catholic church and set apart for remembrance.

Many of their stories are remarkable. They are all very different. There are men and women, young and old. They come from all corners of the world, and all walks of life. There are many martyrs but there are also those who lived and died long lives committed to God’s work who were not necessarily persecuted or killed for their work or their faith.

Most of them lived austere lives, by choice. Some had been born into poverty, but more often it seemed they had been born into lives of comfort, if not outright wealth. Most had a benefactor, or someone who had been an example of faith, someone who had brought them to the faith, or otherwise taught them about the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ. Each of them had made a conscious decision, often against the desire and counsel of their families and friends, to dedicate their lives wholly to God. Some were disinherited, and others were killed for that choice. Their stories made for juicy reading.

When my kids were growing up in the Lutheran church we belonged to, we had “Parish Night” on Wednesdays, when children’s choirs, Confirmation and other studies and activities took place. On the Wednesday night prior to All Saints Sunday each year, we held a churchwide activity called “Search for the Saints.”

Various members of the congregation would dress up as particular saints and would “hide” throughout the church building and grounds and after a brief service of prayer, the children and adults who had come would go and “search” for them. Once located, each saint would tell his or her story. One year, I was St. Lucia, another year, Joan of Arc. Bob and Mary made a great St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare. Gary was perfect as John the Baptist.

Each year on that night, we sang a hymn called, I Sing a Song of the Saints of God. This is a song of appreciation for the stories of the saints, whose lives God gives us as a lens through which we can see God’s gracious acts. The first verse goes like this:

I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green:
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

            Today is a day the church sets aside to remember the saints. But not just the ones I studied as a girl, or the ones we dressed up as all those years, to tell their stories. Today isn’t about just some of the saints, it is about all of the saints of God.

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber writes, “To be clear, this isn’t like a cult of saints or anything…we don’t need special saints to intercede for us because God listens to them more since they were just basically better Christians than we are. 

“What we celebrate when we celebrate All Saints is not the superhuman faith and power of a select few but God’s ability to use flawed people to do divine things. We celebrate all on whom God has acted in baptism, sealing them, as Ephesians says, with the mark of the promised Holy Spirit.

“We celebrate the fact that God creates faith in God’s people, and those people through ordinary acts of love, bring the Kingdom of Heaven closer to Earth. We celebrate that we have, in all who’ve gone before us, what St. Paul calls such a great cloud of witnesses and that the faithful departed are as much the body of Christ as we are.”

The second verse of I Sing a Song… goes:

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and God’s love made them strong;
and they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake,
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
and there’s not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn’t be one too.

            The truth is that in baptism God did indeed make each of us saints. We each have our own stories to tell. We each have our own struggles and demons to wrestle, and we each have our flaws. And yet, God has made each of us a saint and strengthens us in our walk as saints for Jesus’ sake, regardless of our vocation: doctor, student, nurse, social worker, teacher, business woman, sanitation worker, policeman, shop worker, househusband, researcher, real estate broker, banker, fashion designer – you get the picture.

Our sainthood has already begun, it already happened, on the day when we were carried to, or walked to the font. Some of us cooed sweetly on the day when water was poured over our head or we were immersed in the waters of baptism. Others of us met the water and the words “You are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” kicking and screaming. How apropos. Jesus takes us and claims us either way, and makes us saints of God and then uses our lives to show others about new life in him. Despite our failings and frailties Jesus takes us and, granting us mercy and grace, plunks us down in a particular place and time to serve as his saints on earth.

            The context in which we find ourselves may not seem as fearsome as the lion’s dens or holy wars or poverty and famine-stricken lands, that many of the saints of old faced but in many ways as we live out our lives today, we may be challenged to hold on to the faith and reassurance these texts give us.

In today’s First reading, from Daniel, we are reminded that in the midst of a highly troubled and dangerous world, God is present and God is more powerful than all the beasts that threaten and terrify us. God is stronger than the fear-mongering, terror-producing words and actions that surround us in our world right now, today, and on a daily basis.

God is stronger than the fear and wrath that we will likely witness regardless of the outcome of this week’s presidential election.

We cannot deny the great divisions this election has created, and the election results will produce winners and losers. But in the midst of the tumult, my friends, we are reminded by these verses that God is indeed present, and God continues to be a God who loves and nourishes rather than a God who devours and destroys.

God’s Word is a Word of hope and life and salvation forever and ever. In the midst of whatever assails us, our Gospel bids us to live as the Christ-followers we are, the saints of the God of peace and grace.

The words of Ephesians speak of the inheritance that we received as God’s sainted ones, so that we live with our hope set on Christ, and therefore live for the hope of his glory. Not our own. We are not made saints for our own good, but for the good and the glory of God in Christ Jesus, and for the kingdom he has come to bring into this world, a kingdom that reflects the goodness, love, light, peace, mercy, forgiveness, and grace of God.

Many of us have come here today to remember someone who has died. Your hearts may be heavy with that loss, whether it is recent or occurred years or even decades ago.

We would rather not have to remember the names of our deceased loved ones today, we would much rather they be standing right here beside us. The words from Ephesians, however, reminds us that God gathers all of us up in this grand inheritance of the saints, and joins us together in a body, together; sainted, together; for God’s own glory, together.

The sting of death may threaten to mute our celebration, but the reality is that death is meaningless to God because God has defeated death once and for all. It is not that God is impervious to the pain of death. But in death we find God’s ultimate victory, for us – the promised resurrection. 

The reality is that the promise of the resurrection is real. The blessing of the resurrection is for all those who have gone before us, and it is for us today, because we, too, are the saints of God.

Just as we earlier lifted up the names of the saints who died recently, when you came in today your name was placed on a band, along with the name of someone who has been an example of God’s love in your life.  These names were then joined with the names of many of the other saints of our community. A chain composed of all these names now encircles the baptismal font, as a reminder of the sainthood conferred on each of us in baptism, and a further reminder of the strength formed by this community of saints when we are joined together for the sake of Jesus Christ.

May this chain of saints serve as a visual reminder for us of the common mission of all the saints, living and dead, to praise and glorify God through all we do and say.

As we go forth this day, let us be inspired by the final words of the hymn:

They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still;
the world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus’ will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
for the saints of God are just folk like me,

And now, people of God, repeat after me,

and I mean to be one too.

By the grace of God, it is so.

Amen.