Sunday, January 11, 2009Baptism of Our Lord
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson
Readings:
Genesis 1:1-5
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11
Audio sermon file:
In the beginning was Genesis, the story of creation. God is The Big Cheese who’s still creating the universe. His creation is not measurable in human terms. Much as this creation finds a microcosm in the development of a single child, from a formless void, shape; from chaos, order. Last Reformation Pastor Mohn said something very similar byextolling “all the possibility” held in the Confirmands’ lives about to unfold, the excitement of all they can and will become, the shaping of themselves by God as he continues his Creation odyssey.
Pastor Johnson took us back to when he was 7 years old, taken in by the Pastor at All Saints Lutheran at 152 DeSoto on the east side of Detroit. He was invited “to get baptized”.
“What I didn’t realize behind my itchy tie on a hot summer day was that my life would never be the same.”
It was the moment you signed your Eternal Life Insurance policy with Purgatory Indemnity, Inc. In Baptism, you are offered more than salvation from purgatory. It’s not about what you’re asved ffrom as much as what you’re born into … you are anointed into a community of believers, a family like no other. Pastor Johnson was taught conformation by a Paul Johnson, and confirmed by a Pastor P.T. “Cal” Johnson … all in the family, so to speak. At this particular crossroads in his life, his family found themselves homeless, yet taken in by a Church. Oh, and college? The debt paid down by a scholarship from the Lutheran Church of America. These are the things a family does … provides shelter and money for education, to shape a life wherein Creation marches on.
Baptism isn’t about “ should so I won’t go to Hell or Purgatory”. We’re not baptized into the Church of the Shield of Eternal Damnation, the Church of the Limited, but the limitless; not the stain of original sin, but the Church of Daily Forgiveness. It’s about God not being able to stand not being close to me, as a parent not being able to stand not being close to their children, those in whose creation they played a part. As Mark in verse 10 says, God will “tear apart the heavens” to get to us. Upon 6 days of creating God looks it all over & says “This is good”. This, the work of His very hands, even, he will tear apart … the order out of chaos, the shape out of void, he will tear apart to “get to us”
In our human families, as parents, we can be a very positive influence on our kids’ growing up. We can also be too easy on one kid, too hard on number 2, too absent for number 3. Baptism is God’s reminder that He can continually shape you, form you, grant you infinite access to His grace. God won’t be too easy, too hard or too absent. There is, through God’s infinite grace, always 2nd, 3rd and 100th chances … infinite possibility that we can be different, better tomorrow. Baptism means life can never be the same again.
Your Baptism is not “a Should”, it’s “a Can”!!
Our failings do not define who we are, who we might yet become.
I am not the sum of my mistakes.
Baptism wipes the slate clean each and every morning. You’re baptized into The Church of 2nd Chances, a community that cares if you’re in the hospital, that believes in the power of possibility, that believes the future holds “a better way” … and for that possibility, that future he will tear apart the very heavens and proclaim “This is My Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
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