The Gospel reading for Sunday, January 13, 2019, is Luke 3:15-17, 21-22. Our other readings this week include Isaiah 43:1-7 and Psalm 29. I found inspiration from Christine Hallenbeck Ask’s GodPause devotional on January 11, 2019, and David Lose’s Working Preacher commentary from 2011. Here’s the sermon:
Last year I got my dad a subscription to the Greene Recorder for his birthday. Of course, now his birthday is coming up again, and I have to figure out if that’s what he gets for his birthday every year or if I’m supposed to get him another present but still renew his subscription. Subscriptions are a dangerous present.
Anyway, he loves reading the paper, and he often calls me to talk about something he’s read, even before I’ve finished reading my copy.
For both of us, one of our favorite parts of any newspaper is reading the obituaries. Dad has always said that when he dies, he wants his obituary published in some small town paper where no one has ever heard of him. That town might be Greene now, 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 a person’s entire life story, wrapped up in a couple 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. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have obituaries of people before they die, while you still have the chance to get to know them? Sort of like a dating profile, but more honest and comprehensive. Instead of exchanging business cards, you could give someone your entire life story in under a thousand words, like a really short auto-biography looking back over your life.
It might sound like high school English homework (and I think it was for me), 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 to you. At WELCA women’s Bible study on Thursday, one of the questions was, “If you were to tell the story of your faith journey, where would you start?”
For all the ladies there, their answer was that their first memories of faith were at Sunday School as little kids. That’s a great answer. Sunday School forms the foundation for our faith. It’s where many of us first learned Bible stories.
There will be a bunch of little kids in this building between Sunday services learning about Jesus calling disciples and hopefully making the connection that Jesus is calling them as his disciples. Sunday School is a wonderful first memory of faith.
But in our understanding of faith as Lutherans, Sunday School is not the beginning of your faith journey. Your faith journey 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, and to us as people included in the new covenant through Jesus. “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. 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 God loves 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.
The part we remember of our faith journey might start with Sunday School, or maybe much later for some of you, and that’s fine, but the true beginning of our faith journey is baptism.
Jesus’ baptism is a model for ours. 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.’”
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.
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 baptized, you are beloved.
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. You are sealed with the cross of Christ and named as God’s beloved child forever.
To help you remember who you are, during the hymn of the day [as we receive the offering], 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 as you 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