January 11, 2009

Mark 1:4-11

 

You are Beloved

 

            “He saw the heavens torn apart and a dove descended on him and he heard, “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  I was a little apprehensive baptizing Kamryn this morning half expecting some dramatics to occur. It is a special time in the life of parents to hear the affirmation that your son or daughter is a child of God and is unconditionally loved by God. Parents of a baptized child need to know that this is what God says to their child at baptism, and parents must continually express this truth to their child throughout his or her growing years. The God who created you loves you. Martin Luther says, “Baptism is the visible sign of God’s invisible grace and love for you.”

 

This is why we baptize infants.  God’s love comes first. Our response is second. When Jesus heard these affirmations from a voice coming from the heavens, Jesus had not yet even begun his ministry. He had not earned his stripes as a Suffering Servant obeying the will of God with every move he made. There was nothing yet for God to be pleased or even upset about.  God simply loved His child.

 

God’s love for you is not dependent on anything you do or don’t do. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less. There are no strings attached with God’s love, and He loves you unconditionally. This must be the rock foundation on which our faith is rooted and nurtured.

 

Baptism is your visible sign of God’s invisible grace and love for you. Baptism is not hell insurance. The belief “if a child dies without being baptized by humans then it is not going into God’s heavenly kingdom” is simply hogwash. It is God who loves this child unconditionally; and it is God, not us, who is in charge.

 

Baptism is not a rite for joining the Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic, or Episcopal club. To be part of the Body of Christ is not a branding into an organization like a fraternity, or Lion’s Club, or the Girl Scouts where you must be baptized correctly and follow the rules and regulations of the congregation. What we do in baptism is a visible sign of God’s invisible grace and love that is present before anything we do.

 

The good news that Jesus brings to us is that his heavenly Father loves us. And because of this love, He came to us in Jesus to meet us where we are, how we live, and to show us this love. And when we could not handle this kind of unconditional love and rejected it by hanging Jesus on the cross, we see that God still loves us and forgives us. He resurrected Jesus to life eternal and gave the Holy Spirit to be with us so that we are never alone or apart from His love and acceptance.

 

We do not have to make people first feel guilty to tell them of God’s love. We do not have to tell people how bad they are in order for them to know God’s love. Most of us have these kind of tapes playing in our heads all the time anyway. Fear and guilt are not motivating factors. Gratitude is our attitude. God wants a closer relationship with each one of us and wants to walk with us in our journey of faith. The story of God’s amazing grace is that you can stop fretting over the question if you are loveable and begin to embrace your life as a child of God, enjoying your gift of life, and sharing God’s love with others. We are empowered through our baptism to love as God loves us. We re connected. We are family. Jesus’ ministry began at his baptism. Our baptism is the beginning of our journey with God.

 

The beginning of this journey is not difficult. The journey itself and the finishing of the journey are much more problematic. Every time I perform a wedding of a young couple, I look at them in their love for each other and want to tell them that their marriage is not in this moment but lies in all the moments that come. What is your marriage going to be like when all the hard times come and buried rocks are kicked over? Will you be able to complete your vows of for better or for worse?

 

Our baptisms are much the same. You remember what Jesus cried out on the cross? He said, “It is finished.” He had heard the voice of God at the beginning of his ministry, and his journey of baptism was completed with his giving of God’s love unconditionally to the unclean, the despised, the rejected, the poor, and the unloved – even to death on the cross.  He was true to God’s call to him from the beginning of his ministry.

 

We know from Jesus’ baptism that the Spirit of God comes to be with us, we are declared to be his son or daughter, and God is pleased with you and calls you beloved. Every morning we need to get out of bed and go to the window, raise the blinds to let in the light, and say to the world, “I am a child of God and He loves me.  Now what am I going to do today to respond to His love?”  There are days that this will be harder than others. We all have them. We live out our baptism on a daily basis until our journey of life is finished. The presence of the Spirit with us enables us to face the challenges in our marriage when there is strife, when the relationship with our children may be troubled, when our own illnesses and the illnesses and death of our loved ones come, and when we need to address the evils and injustices in our society that demean and limit people from living an abundant life that God so desires for all of us.

 

God calls us in our baptism into the ministry of Jesus Christ. Bob Lumpkins and Jim Taylor are responding this morning to a specific call to serve as Elders in the leadership and ministry of this congregation. As with our Lord Jesus Christ, it is not a call to self-importance but is a call to humbly serve others in his name and for his sake. I ask Bob and Jim to now come forward and join me at the chancel steps.