As we wrap up our series, “How Does a Weary World Rejoice?” our theme is, “We trust our belovedness.” Rejoicing comes when we recognize and trust God’s immeasurable love for us. Our identity as God’s beloved sustains us when we grow weary from everything going on in our world.
Before Jesus’ public earthly ministry begins, his identity is confirmed in his baptism. As Jesus is baptized, the heavens are open, the Holy Spirit descends upon him, and God’s voice declares, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” In a similar way (although usually without God’s audible voice), our identity as beloved children of God is affirmed in our baptism. Secure in our identity and relationship with God, we are sent out to do God’s work during our time on earth.
Today’s Scripture readings are Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 29, and Luke 3:1-6, 21-23a. Much of this sermon is adapted from a Baptism of Christ sermon I gave on January 13, 2019, for which I found inspiration from Christine Hallenbeck Ask’s GodPause devotional on January 11, 2019, and David Lose’s Working Preacher commentary from 2011. I also found helpful this year JoAnn Post’s commentary at Christian Century. This week’s service at Living Hope included the baptism of Elijah Scholten. Here’s the podcast audio and the livestream from Living Hope.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
One of the ways my dad and I bond in our family is through sending each other random pieces of information. Almost every day, he texts me pictures of strange for sale ads he finds on Craigslist. In return, I sometimes call and read him interesting obituaries in the Ozaukee Press for people neither of us have any connection to.
When he dies, Dad has said for a while that he wants his obituary published in some small newspaper somewhere where no one’s ever heard of him. Maybe that’s the Ozaukee Press, I don’t know. Probably not, because some of you have met him.
There’s something neat about all you know about a person being what’s written in their obituary. It’s an entire life story, wrapped up in a few paragraphs trying to answer the question, “Who is this person?”
It’s sad, of course, because by the time you read a stranger’s obituary, you’ve missed the chance to know them in life. But still, it’s interesting to get a glimpse of their life story, to see the impact they made on their friends and family.
It might sound like high school English homework, but have you ever tried writing your own obituary? Have you ever tried putting who you are down on paper?
For Christians, knowing who you are starts with faith. The story of your life, your whole identity starts with knowing your relationship with God, or more importantly, God’s relationship with you. What would it look like if you wrote the story of your relationship with God? Where would you start?
Maybe it’d be Sunday School, or a Christian day care. Maybe a grandparent teaching you to pray, or perhaps you had a particular pastor or teacher who introduced you to Jesus. Maybe it was the beauty of hearing Christmas carols sung by candlelight. All those are wonderful first memories of faith.
But in our understanding of faith as Lutherans, Sunday School, or church new member class, or even grandparents reading Bible stories are not the beginning of your faith journey. Your relationship with God doesn’t start with what you learned, or what you remember, or anything you do.
Look at this first reading from Isaiah. This is God talking to the people of Israel through Isaiah. “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:”
God’s relationship with you starts before you are born. Psalm 139 says God knit you together in your mother’s womb. You are a creation of God, formed, shaped, molded by God. God’s speech here begins by establishing who God is in relation to you, and why God has the right to talk to you. God’s opinion of you matters because God is your Creator.
Thus says the Lord who created you, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
God knows your name. God knows who you are, everything about you. God knows more about you than your parents, more than your friends, more than your spouse or your kids or your pastor or your lawyer or anyone else.
God knows far more about you than will ever fit in your obituary. The Lord—this one our Psalm testifies has the power to shake the wilderness and make nations skip like a calf—this Lord knows all about you. God knows your joys and your fears, your deepest darkest secrets, your successes and your flaws. And knowing everything about you, God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.”
You belong to God. You are redeemed, claimed by your Creator. That’s all in the past tense. It’s happened and you can’t do anything about it.
But the next section is future tense. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”
No matter what happens, God is with you. That doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen, or that you won’t get hurt or burned or wounded. This world can do a lot to you, and it’s ok to be weary. This world will eventually kill you. But that won’t stop God.
“When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Why? Because “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
Why does God love you? Because that’s who God is. God will give anything for you, even entire nations, even God’s own Son, even God’s own self.
Look at Jesus and see how much God loves you. Isaiah 43 is the only passage in the Bible where these three words are spelled out, but it’s all over the Bible. God says, “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and (here’s the three words) I love you.” Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Here at Christ the King / Living Hope, we’ve spent the last six weeks exploring the question, “How does a weary world rejoice?” As we’ve moved through Luke’s Christmas story, we’ve talked about acknowledging our weariness, finding joy in connection and supporting one another; we’ve talked about allowing ourselves to be amazed, making room, and rooting ourselves in ritual.
Today, we’re finally to the most important answer, the most foundational reason that no matter how tiring this world gets, we as Christians can rejoice. The reason we can rejoice as God’s people in this weary world is because of God’s love. This weary world can rejoice when it trusts its belovedness, who it is in relation to God.
I believe that’s the purpose of baptism. Maybe not the only purpose, but one of the most important. For Jesus, it’s a moment for his true identity to be confirmed before he begins his public ministry.
Your baptism is a tangible moment in time you can point to when God declares through water and word that you are loved, you belong to me. If you’re here and you’re not baptized, if you haven’t had that promise publicly declared over you, let’s talk after service, because this invitation is for you too. In baptism, God says yes to you.
JoAnn Post writes, “Why baptize? God has no need of our baptism. But we do. We need to hear; we need to know. Whether emerging from the waters of the womb or the waters of a river, we need to hear again that we are beloved.”
Jesus’ baptism by his cousin John the baptist in the Jordan river is a model for us. When Jesus had been baptized and was praying, “The heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’”
I don’t expect an audible voice in Elijah’s baptism today, or the visible descent of the Holy Spirit, but that’s what happens in baptism.
We don’t generally get the audible voice from heaven, or the visible descent of the Holy Spirit, but that’s what happens in baptism.
In the waters of baptism, you are claimed as God’s own beloved child. God the Holy Spirit enters your life. Your identity—who you are—is established. The most important line of your obituary is written: You are God’s son, God’s daughter, God’s child. You are beloved.
What changes if you believe that? It takes faith to trust God’s word is true, to believe God’s love is for you. Reverend Sarah Speed titled her poem for this week, “The Bravest Thing We Can Do.”
The whole poem is on the window outside the sanctuary, but the last line is, “The bravest thing we can ever do is trust that we belong here.” What changes in your life if you believe God put you here for a purpose, if despite all the voices in this world inviting you to give up—telling you you don’t belong—you believe the label God gives to you in baptism?
James Joyce once wrote, “Read your own obituary notice; they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.” Knowing who you are sets you free to live your life. You are forgiven, you are redeemed, you are called.
You are God’s beloved child, and nothing that can happen in this world, none of the junk this world can throw at you will ever change that identity. God’s yes to you is eternal.
The tradition used to be that your first name would be given to you when you were baptized. Nowadays parents usually name children before they leave the hospital, but occasionally people still refer to your first name as your Christian name. Sometimes people even change their name at baptism. Whether or not you actually change your name, your identity is changed in baptism.
That’s the promise we’re speaking over Elijah this morning: You are sealed with the cross of Christ and named as God’s beloved child forever.
To help you remember who you are, I’m going to come around the during the hymn of the day, and I’m going to hand you a name tag that says, “Beloved” and ask you to put it on. Obviously take it off before washing your clothes, but my challenge to you is to wear it for the rest of the day to remember who you are to God.
The other nice thing about a name tag is that reminds you to see other people that they too are beloved by God. Sometimes we need that reminder too, but that’s a different sermon.
Your name tag will only last a few hours, but you have the rest of your life to live into your identity as God’s beloved child. You have the rest of your life to deal with the fact that God loves you and to figure out if you love God back.
You get to figure out the rest of your obituary, but everything starts with your heavenly Father’s love for you. With you, God is well pleased. Amen