named and claimed

Isaiah 43, psalm 29 and Luke 3 lectionary texts

Do not be afraid. I love you

Do not be afraid. I am with you.

Words spoken to an ancient people....

Recurring phrases to hold on to when we pass through metaphoric waters and DO in fact feel overwhelmed...when life's fires of pain or anguish DO threaten to burn up all oru faith....when the violent and flashing thunderstorm of our psalm shakes our very being....the voice of God is in it

Do not be afraid. I am with you

All three of our texts today are about God's voice speaking:

in Isaiah it's in comfort for the grieving, courage for the fearful

in psalm 29 it's a voice of awesome power known and experienced almost viscerally in nature

and in Luke's story it's a naming and claiming voice

You are my child, I love you, you've given me pleasure, or you delighted me

Interestingly I learned that “I am well pleased” is actually a past tense phrase. Today, Jesus would be considered a young man at 30, but by the time Jesus is baptised, he's an old man by the standards of his day....he had already lived almost all the life he had before he heard this voice; he had only about three years left to live.

So baptism isn't just for babies and children; this is a story that has meaning for all of us, whether we're in the autumn of life or its youth or prime.

You see, this isn't just a long-ago story about God's voice speaking; this is also a text about OUR identity as human beings: loved, named, claimed, children of the God who is still speaking.

It is an awesome thing to be named and identified by a certain name. When I was back in Scotland last November, someone actually said to me, Oh you're that Margaret, you're Jimmy Scott's daughter! That used to happen to me all the time as a child too.

But today's society in general is much more anonymous—many of us don't know our neighbours' names, we just watch their comings and goings in cars in and out of automatic garage doors

Who are you? Who am I? Named Margaret, claimed as wife, mother, pastor--all those identities that lay claim to me...but child of God, beloved, giving delight to the God of the cosmos?

We hear a lot these days about identity theft...well, I think we have allowed our culture to take away our identity as God's beloved. One reason I think it happens is that our lives are so filled with noise, we can't hear God's voice, any more than we can really hear the sound of that trickling water. Luke is the only gospel writer who sets this voice and spirit experience in prayer -- “as he came out of the water and was praying”. How well do we listen for God? How often are you quiet enough?

it's time to take back our stolen ID...to recover our identity as those who take Christ's name and take on God's claim on our lives.

That's what our baptism means. Whether we are sprinkled or dunked, as children or adults, in this moment heaven opens and comes down to earth: what was dualistic and separate meet, and nothing is ever the same again, not for Jesus then, nor for us now.

we become immersed in God's alternative reality—not the one where heaven is out there somewhere as a distant destination, but a new reality where divine influence is infused into earth, into ordinary, daily life.

Jesus undergoes the baptism of John the Baptizer with all those other people – and whatever that baptism really meant in those days, it was something countercultural...it threatened the political powers of the day, and Herod threw John in prison and eventually had him beheaded.

Is our baptism threatening to the culture of the day? If not, why not? Could it be that we have softened baptism into a rite of passage in a safe, social institution called church, and forgotten our baptism? Forgotten that it's a public message of solidarity with God's voice, a statement that our identity is in Christ's name and mission?

Back when I was a child and someone identified me as Jimmy or Annie Scott's daughter, it wasn't just about my name so they could place me. It was about who and what I was expected to be, how I was expected to behave. Is not the same true of Christ's people today?

There has to be a connection between what happens here, and what happens there (outside these walls)

The connection between an hour or so on Sunday and the other 167 hours of the week is this: water....baptism...your baptism

Every time you use water, even just wash your hands, remember who you are and who you're called to be

there are basins of water in front 

If you would reclaim your identity as God's beloved, and publicly state your intent to live out your baptism 168 hours a week, I invite you to come and receive water on your open hands. Those giving the water will say

 you are God's beloved son or daughter,

and you may respond,

named and claimed to live it out.

Come. Come to the waters where heaven and earth meet and entwine

Come to be named and claimed to live it out.