How to Remember Your Baptism

How to Remember Your Baptism

This Sunday, the lectionary passages recount for us the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptizer. It is common on this Sunday that we ask the members of the congregation to remember their baptism, for many Presbyterians a difficult task since it is traditional practice to baptize infants.

Maybe it is more accurate to ask us to live up to our baptism. The Scriptures and the confessions teach us that baptism for us involves the in-grafting of the baptized into the body of Christ. As parents baptizing children, we do this in the same way God commanded the Israelites to circumcise male children on the eighth day of their birth. These children are now a part of the covenant family and members of the Kingdom of God.

This entrance into the covenant is also why we refer to the period of instruction leading up to membership in the visible church as confirmation. The individual is not merely being given instruction regarding the church sacraments and his/her ability to understand what happens through participation in them, nor are they learning about the governmental structures of the church or denomination the person is seeking to join. These persons are confirming the faithfulness of God through his covenant, that they have indeed grown up into their faith, into the promises made on their behalf by their parents years before.

The promises were originally made for you, if you were baptized as an infant, when you were unable to voice your own choices. Your parents made a commitment to pray with you and for you. They promised to live the Christian faith before you in such a way that finding Christ would be as simple as watching them and how they acted, reacted, and treated those around them. So, remembering your baptism means remembering and living out that moment in your life when your parents’ faith became your own faith. This is the time when the covenant became real, when the faithfulness of God came through, when your parents’ prayers for you became reality and you allowed the Holy Spirit to draw you to your Savior, Jesus Christ.

Pastor Craig

The Gathering

The Gathering – Gatherings are nice. We have just come through “gathering” holidays, those holidays when most of us make considerable effort to connect, or reconnect, with family and friends. We visit those we can and write to those we cannot. We send out letters highlighting life changes and achievements that have been a part of our lives, or our children’s and grand-children’s lives for the past year. Some of us actually read these letters that other people send to us talking about people we have never met, and probably will never meet!

Jeremiah 31:7ff talks about a gathering, one that brings great joy, a gathering from the remote places of the earth. I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return. Yes, Almighty God will find those that are His wherever they have wondered over the course of their lives, whatever their circumstances. He will bring them to Himself. He will not abandon the black sheep of the family because of the things they have done. He will not shut the door and lock them out. All he asks is that we, yes I said we, return joyfully, that we recognize that it is God who leads us back home, that we put away our self-righteousness and stop thinking that this is something we have achieved on our own efforts and by our own might.

As the Prodigal Son returned to the grace of the Father, so shall we. He will strip off the things that label us as slaves and dress us as royalty, as children of the King, as ones who dress who belong to the Kingdom of God. 

Maybe you feel like the Prodigal Son. You might feel that you have not used 2009 to follow the Savior in the way you had planned a year ago. It is time to come home and change clothes. Your Heavenly Father accepts no slaves, only sons and daughters. The feast is prepared. Your clothes are laid out on your own bed. Your Heavenly Father is in the tower watching for your form on the horizon. He knows the way you walk. He knows your little mannerisms. He knows everything there is to know about you. He even knows the very number of the hairs on your head. Be gathered in, in 2010!

Pastor Craig

What Now?

What Now? It’s time to begin to make plans to put Christmas away. Some of you have already done this. It is the tradition in some families to being to de-decorate the house Christmas afternoon. There is a desire to “get things back to the way they belong,” to put the furniture that had been moved to make room for the Christmas tree back in the proper spot. We need to throw all those wrapping paper and gift bags piles away.

I am not that kind of person. I’m not as bad as the choir director who served a church with me in South Carolina, who would keep his Christmas tree up past Valentine’s Day.  

It feels like those who want to get things packed away run from the manger too quickly, something along the lines of a spiritual Scrooge. Get it over with and get back to reality! In that way of thinking, those of us who like the trappings of Christmas to stay around just a little longer feel a sense of running from the sacred, the mystical, the spiritual and back to business as usual.

Something amazing has happened and we need to take time to process it. We would be the disciples who would stand with Peter at the transfiguration, hammer in hand, and agree that the three tabernacles should be built as soon as possible and that we conduct regular pilgrimages to the spot and bask in the glow and weight of Divine history.

To those on the other side of the de-decorating issue, Christmas is a day. That day has now passed us and we need to get back to living the life that surrounds us. We feel we are more practical. Jesus didn’t come into the world to keep the shepherds at the stable forever.

No, they returned to their flocks that very same night, glorifying and praising God all the way. The purpose of the birth of Christ is not to draw us out of the world to dwell in some spiritual dream land. It is to equip us with the spiritual, that we might take the wonder of the Christ with us into the world, not hide from the world in our ritual.

The key is somewhere between the rush to take things down and the desire to leave them all up until they are totally irrelevant. Maybe the shepherds had the whole thing right. Get back to work as soon as possible but go as a totally different people from this point forward.

Pastor Craig

Christmas Eve? Or, Christmas Day?

ANTICIPATION? Which is better, Christmas Eve? Or, Christmas Day? I, myself, have a hard time choosing. Christmas day brings with it all the excitement of the day itself. For many of us it holds fond memories of family and friends gathered around our table and tree. It holds the fulfillment of the perfect gift given or received.

Ahhh, Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve holds in its grasp all the hope of Christmas Day! My most favorite time of the church year is Christmas Eve. It is contained in the few moments of quiet after the Christmas Eve service. It is after the parties, after the dinners, after the special services, music, and programs. It is five minutes in the quiet sanctuary with the scent of the candles still lingering in the air and only the lights from the tree softly glowing. It is after everyone else is gone and right before I go home myself. It is a handful of fleeting minutes to contemplate the Infinite God in the tiny manger, to think of the one who deserves the rulers of the world to bow low before Him also accepting the lowly, lonely, outcast shepherds into such a humble throne room. 

Christmas Eve requires patience, something many of us are in short supply of during the holiday season. We use it all up waiting in lines, making our list, checking it twice, wrapping, hiding, more wrapping, and on and on. Christmas Eve requires faith, faith that God will indeed deliver on the promises He has made.

Christmas Day has, at times, been a let down for some of us, a dear relative that couldn’t come, a present that did not arrive on time or was not given at all, or the less than perfect Christmas dinner. However, the prophets did not promise disappointment, but fulfillment. God does not deliver something unwanted, but that which is most needed. The quiet of Christmas Eve just gives us a few more moments to wonder at the marvel of such a timely and necessary gift!

Pastor Craig

To the Ends of the Earth

To the ends of the world . . . Greatness, it is something so fleeting. You or I may be well known within our small community, or within our sphere of expertise of vocation and totally unheard of beyond that immediate sphere of community.

I would guess that each of you could name one Nobel winner from the most recent round of nominees. However, the winner for physics, medicine, etc. is probably something we would not remember even though we may have heard it several times.

Greatness to the end of the world involves more than fame. Fame, even if it is widespread, is still only for a moment in this world. In a few weeks or months, a more recent news item or scandal will grab our attention, and the previous tabloid attention getter will quickly disappear from our memories.

The greatness that refers to power is even less than universal. There has never been a worldwide empire. There has never even been one that really came close to true, worldwide domination. Even the might of the British, Spanish, or Mongol Empires never had control of more than 10% of the world’s landmass at any one time. Each of them had their moment in the sun and quickly faded into legend.

So, to speak about one whose name is great even to the end of the earth. . .well, what exactly does that mean? Certainly, there will indeed come a day when all the word, even every atom of the entire creation, will sing the praises of our Savior. Certainly there will come a time when Christ shall truly rule as King over every corner of his creation and every knee shall bow. However, I think that is just a part of the Good News. The part that truly stirs my soul has little to do with headlines or geography. The part that stirs my soul at its greatest depths is the part that addresses completeness.

You see, we experience the kingdom of God, as the Apostle Paul, wrote, “as one looking in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as also I am known.”

Completeness. The name of Christ will be completely great, great in every possible sense of the word, great beyond simple fame or power. Christ’s greatness will be comprehensive and complete. There will be no corner in any part of the earth where his Glory does not shine. That is the coming of Christ we long for now.

The Babe in the manger, for all its majesty and wonder, is simply a dim mirror compared to the splendor we shall one day see face to face. I can’t wait!

Pastor Craig

Powerful!

Powerful! Very few of us know what true darkness is like. Even on the most cloudy of nights there are the lights from our house, the street, the occasional passing car. Shut yourself in your closet and turn out the light. Most times you can still see some things. The light from the room filters under the door. You really have to try hard to be in total darkness!

How powerful is the darkness? The darkness contains our fears, it steals our sight, and it limits our vision (both literally and figuratively).

When we were small, the darkness was the place where the things we were afraid of lived. It may have contained a nightmare of two. Not all darkness was evil, but it did seem that most of the things that were evil lived somewhere in the darkness.

So, what is more powerful than the darkness? Yes, you’re right. The picture to the left did give it away, didn’t it? Darkness goes running away when one candle is lit. One little flickering flame is all it takes.

A candle flame seems so vulnerable. A puff of breath can blow it out, so we look for other images of power. Do an internet search for pictures of power. Do you know what image showed up more often than any other? It wasn’t a picture of military might. It wasn’t a picture of a powerful waterfall. It wasn’t an image of an Olympic weight lifter. It wasn’t a picture of any of the presidents of the United States. It was pictures of Oprah.

It seems sad that very few of the pictures could have been labeled as religious, or even inspirational. Probably more than half of them were of different celebrities. And by far, the favorite celebrity was Oprah.

I like the image of the candle though. That little baby in the manger was vulnerable too. He needed to be rescued from an evil King Herod. God needed his diaper changed. He was hungry. He got tired. Young baby Jesus needed a nap just like a much younger version of you and I did.

Yet, because this young, tender light had come into the world, the world would never be a dark place again. History changed on that dark night. God’s relationship with his creation was redefined when the first rays shone from the manger.

Fear and anxiety were dispelled. Emmanuel, God with us, had brought peace. God did indeed come near.

Pastor Craig

Open the Door

Busni Me Ing Pasbul (Open the Door)

The phrase comes from the Pampanga province of the Philippines and has the idea of being prepared. Open the door! it says. It can have many different contexts. It might be spoken by one standing on the outside desiring admittance. It might just be spoken as a general command or request. However, here, it has the context of expectation. Open the door! because something good is coming. We need to be ready for it.

This second Sunday in Advent we think about John the Baptist and the phrase Prepare the way of the Lord! It is time to make things ready, simple things like opening the door to welcome him in. The problem when we open the door is that we can’t always control what comes in. During the summer, open doors invite all sorts of flies, mosquitoes, and other bugs. During the winter the frigid air rushes through every opening, regardless how small. We don’t want to open the door TOO wide.

If we open it all the way, what happens if a Jesus comes in that we don’t particularly care for?  I spent some time talking to a person who desires to bring Christmas to those less fortunate. So far the call for others to care as well and open the door of their hearts has not been met with enthusiastic response. One person offered an explanation that it could be the season. People are saving their money to spend on themselves. Aren’t you glad Jesus chose differently? Another offered that it was the particular condition of the audience to which she was talking. Either way, the door remained closed, Jesus locked safely on the other side.

Jesus Christ comes into our world and turns everything upside down. He might just ask us to sacrifice something dear. He might call us to move beyond fear and anxiety to boldness and hope. He might require us to be a little less self-centered and a little more other centered. And, somehow in the process, we just might find out that we like it.

We might recognize that peace on earth comes from God but, often, is delivered by us. We might catch on that the Christmas presents that appear under the less fortunate’s tree might have to find their way there from our tree first. We might learn that the inconvenient visit to the shut-in or nursing home resident is appreciated so much simply because they know it is so inconvenient. Prepare the way of the Lord!

Open the door, but look out when you do, blessing may just find its way in!

Pastor Craig