Grace and peace to you from God our creator and sustainer, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit that abides in each of us.  Amen.

As most of you know, I took some time off this past week and went to California to visit family.  Jill and I had a wonderful time, and I believe it was also a powerful and healing time for Jill, especially that first moment she saw her Dad.  When we walked into her parents’ home the day we arrived and she saw her dad standing, and walking, and moving around for the first time since his accident and surgery last November, she experienced a moment of healing and joy.  She knew that her Dad was doing better, but to see it and witness it was a powerful and healing moment.  Oh, it was still obvious that he has a ways to go to be 100% healed, as he is still wearing a neck brace and he still needs assistance with many things, but it was just as obvious that somehow he was better.  For me, as I watched Jill embrace her dad for the first time since the accident, all I could say was, “Praise be to God!”   You see, although I do not know how or why, I do know that in the midst of the accident, the surgery, and now the recovery, God was and is present and at work.  How do I know this?  Well, our lessons this morning assure me that God is alive and active in this world, and through Him all things are possible.

In our text from Isaiah, we are told how God, the Creator of all (Isaiah 43:1), comes into the world and takes an active part in the lives of the Israelites.  God overcomes all the great powers of the world (43:5-6), and God proclaims that those that are His are “precious” (43:4) to Him and that he will not forsake them.  In our lesson from Acts, we are told when those in Samaria accepted God’s Word that God came to them, also.  And, of course, in our Gospel text today, we are reminded of that great promise that God comes to us through the waters of our baptism because we are precious to Him, and in the act of baptism we are reminded that He claims us.

This past Thursday, January 6, the season of Christmas officially ended and the season of Epiphany began as the Church remembered the coming of the Maji, those wise men from the East.  The coming of the Maji is one way God revealed to the world who Jesus really was, His Son.  Today is the first of six Sundays after Epiphany when we will hear about the various ways God revealed to the world who Jesus was and is, and today we hear how God proclaimed, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). 

Whenever I read this text, I am reminded of a story I read several years ago in a book by Kelly Fryer called Reclaiming the “L” Word.  The “L” word, by the way, is the word “Lutheran.”  You see, Fryer is a Lutheran pastor, and her book is about reclaiming what it means to be Lutheran.  It is a short book, and one I highly recommend.  Anyway, in the second chapter, Fryer tells a story about how, when she was in seminary, there was one day in particular that still stands out for her.  It was a beautiful day outside, and while she was sitting in class she realized that she was bored along with the rest of her classmates.  Apparently, the professor realized that the class was not paying attention because Fryer writes, “Suddenly the professor slapped the notebook shut and stopped talking.  He said he wasn’t going to waste one more breath on us.  But before he left the room, he picked up a piece of chalk and went to the board.  He drew a gigantic ARROW pointing down, stood back and said, ‘If you understand that, you understand everything you need to know about being a Christian…who also happens to be a Lutheran.’  And then he left the room.”  Now, at this point Fryer said her first thought was, “He thinks we are all going to hell!”  But then she goes on to say, “The next time we gathered for class he began by drawing the same arrow on the board.  This time, as he began to speak, he had our full attention.  ‘Here’s what it means,’ he said.  ‘God always comes down.  God always comes down.  There is never anything that we can ever do to turn that arrow around and make our way UP to God.  God comes down in Jesus.  And God still comes down, in the bread and the wine (of communion), in the water (of baptism) and in the fellowship of believers.  God ALWAYS comes down.”

Today we are reminded that baptism is about God’s act of “coming down” to us.  There is nothing you or I can do to go to God, so God promises to come to us.  A few years ago, I was teaching a class one Monday evening and another member of the congregation was leading a different class right next store.  During a break, the person leading the other class came to me and asked if I could come into her class to answer a few questions about baptism.  One woman in particular said, “Pastor, I don’t get it!  How does baptism happen?”  She wanted to know how the Holy Spirit comes to us.  She wanted to know what happens to the water that makes baptism “real” and how we are forgiven.  As I listened to this woman’s questions, I came to understand something myself.  As human beings, we want to make baptism about us, but baptism isn’t about us.  Oh, we are claimed by God and there is that “little” promise to us of forgiveness, but baptism is about God and what God does and is doing in our lives.  My answer to this woman’s questions was, “I do not know.”  Notice that Luke doesn’t tell us how or why Jesus was baptized; he was only interested in telling us what God did in the baptism.  God filled Jesus with the Holy Spirit, claimed Jesus, and empowered Jesus to proclaim the Good News.  Baptism is about being claimed by God.  It is about our identity as children of God and followers of Christ.  Baptism proclaims that we are on a mission, according to Luke, to be witnesses to Christ and share the Good News (Luke 24:25-48).  As witnesses, all we do should be about glorifying God, and not ourselves.

In just a few minutes, as a community, we will reaffirm our baptism.  When we do this, we will affirm our faith in Christ Jesus and in the promise of baptism, and we will reaffirm our promise to live lives that glorify God.  We will once again proclaim that because we are baptized we have been filled with the Holy Spirit, and because of that we are empowered to do the work of Christ.  Martin Luther used to remind himself daily that he was baptized.  In fact, Luther believed that daily we should make the sign of the cross on ourselves and say the words, “I am baptized.”  For Luther, this was his way of remembering that although he did not know how it happened, in baptism God cleansed him, filled him with the Holy Spirit. and empowered him to continue Christ’s work.  Luther understood that no matter how difficult or impossible things seemed, he could do anything because he was baptized.  This morning, as you come forward for communion, I invite you to dip your fingers into the waters of the font, make the sign of the cross upon yourself and say the words, “I am baptized” or take time to bless each other by making the sign of the cross on each other with the words, “Remember, you are baptized.”
 
As a faith community, we enter this new year facing many challenges.  We are attempting to better understand God’s call for us, we are attempting to figure out how we will grow physically with our building, and even how we will obtain more land so that we have room to grow if God desires.  And how on earth will we pay for all of this?  From where I stand, this all seems overwhelming and maybe even impossible, but then I remember I am baptized and you, all of you, are baptized.   This means none of this is about us; it is about God.  Oh, we are certainly part of the plan, but if what we are doing is for the glory of God, then through us God will bring about all we need.  We have all we need to do God’s work; we have the talents, the skills, the strength, and, yes, even all the money we need to continue to do the work of God as we seek to continue to glorify God in all we do.  God has come down, God continues to come down, and God is at work in and through us.

May we always remember this, and may all we do be to the glory of God.  Amen.