"Not Alone" - Sermon for Baptism of our Lord 2018

Text: Genesis 1, Mark 1

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who is always working in us.

            The beginning of the new year is always an interesting time of year. It’s full of newness. New resolutions if you do those, new semesters if you’re a student, teacher or professor, or any number of other school or college workers. It turns to tax time, time to figure out all the new rules. Often new goals are initiated at work, what are your deadlines for projects, what’s the sales figures you are supposed to reach this new year.

            I talked a little about it last week in our video worship I posted on Facebook, but I’d like to bring one thing up again, What God seeks for you this year, What God’s resolution for you is, is for you to know that God is with you in all of this, that God has given you the gifts and abilities to be who God wants you to be.

            Which some of you may be thinking, well, that’s great Pastor Erik, I knew that. But, it’s one of those things that we need to remind ourselves over and over again, and not just at the beginning of a new year, but at all times.

            This beginning time can be overwhelming, and scary, we often try to look through what the next year will hold for us, and some of that is good, but often it’s a lot of, how. How am I going to do all this? How am I going to find the time, the money, the energy to deal and work through this year?

            When I myself I feel overwhelmed I am comforted by the thought that it’s not just up to me, that I’m not the prime actor, that I’m not alone. I turn to my confirmation verse, “Go and baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and remember I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

            As I began this year, I did the same as I described earlier, and did a year look through, I briefly thought about all the things that needed to be done. And as I did that, I had the words to our lessons come forward.

            We have two moments in our text that speak of beginnings and at first glance seem to only speak of beginnings, when we usually think of them we think that’s a thing that happened, it began, and we don’t consider the rest of the meaning behind the event.

            The creation, Genesis 1 and Jesus’ baptism by John.

            It’s time for a minor Hebrew lesson. We read Genesis 1 usually as “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ... while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” This is completely fine by the way, it’s probably the best translation of the Hebrew, but there’s a small problem, Hebrew has more verb tenses than English has. In Hebrew, there is the verb for created, just as we have, but there is also a tense that the best translation would more accurately be, created and that action continues to work and have effects on the here and now. Which is rather unwieldy to write and read, and moves from one word to one word translation to many words that aren’t really there in the Hebrew but are implied. This is all to say, when we read God created the Heavens and the Earth, we need to also see that God still does that right now. When we read Genesis we don’t read how God started and stopped creating, we read that God started creating, but God still works, God still creates in the now and here. Another thing to note is that the word, wind, is the same word for Spirit, or Holy Spirit. So another translation I like is, When God began to create the heaven and the earth, and the Spirit of God was over the waters.

            The second text is Mark. I love all the baptismal accounts, but Mark is always nice because he just gets to the point. John, “Someone more powerful is coming, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Jesus shows up and John baptizes him, and as he comes up out of the waters, the Holy Spirit descends like a dove on him and a voice from Heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

            In Baptism, we find a re-creation, a new creation. There is water, the waters of initial nothingness, and the waters of baptism. There is the Spirit, hovering over the deep, and descending like a dove. There is the Word of God, speaking creation into being, and found incarnate within Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Word became flesh.

            There are more connections, just as creation is both a one-time event, and something that continues to work to this day, so is Baptism. When we were baptized, the water was poured on us, the Spirit of God came upon us. When you were baptized, the Holy Spirit connected you then, and to this very day, to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Your baptism is for more than just when you were a baby. It, like creation, is a thing where God is still working. It’s not You were baptized, you are baptized. That moment of baptism, was then, and is now.

            I find solace in that fact. Because when I look to all that this year entails, I am completely reminded and held close in the knowledge that God is with me in all of it. That the Spirit is upon me, that the waters of baptism continue to wash me clean, that God continues to create through me. And the knowledge that because of that, I am never alone. You are never alone. Because of Christ, you are recreated. Because of Christ, you belong, and are loved by, God. And that’s what matters. Not your sales figures, not your assignments, not your health concerns, not the fear over the coming year, but that God is with you in the midst of those things. That through God, you can overcome, and that through you, God will reach the world.

            As a baptized child of God, washed clean, re-created, God has made you an integral part of God’s continuing, and always working, act of creation. As you look towards the year ahead, you do so not alone, but as one of God’s created and beloved Children sent into this world to share God’s love with all. All those things you have to do? Those are not challenges, those are opportunities for you to show forth what God has done through you. They are moments for you to show the world that God’s creative power still works, that God’s baptism still washes you clean, that God’s love still is worthy to be shared.

            Let us pray,

God of presence, be with us. Wash us. Create through us. In all our days remind us of your presence and that through you, we are not alone. Amen.