THAT'S MY CHILD!
Isaiah 43:1-7
Luke 3:15-22
You see them at ball games and dance recitals, graduations and weddings -- the proud fathers who cheer their children on with beaming faces and sometimes a tear in their eyes. "That's my child!" their action declare to the world.
Some of us have fathers like that, and some of us have fathers who are not so present, so involved, so encouraging and supporting. Some of us have spent our lives, trying with everything we are to somehow earn the validation we never had as children. Whatever our relationship was like with our earthly fathers, a story about a day down at the river reminds us that we have a Father who is loves us in a way no human being can.
When Christ was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, God enthusiastically breaks into human reality and proudly declares, "This is my son!"
This wasn't the first time God did this. There were the angels and the shepherds at Jesus' birth and the star and the magi a few years later. Later, on a mountain top with Jesus' face shining with his Father's glory, God again announces to the world, "This is my son!"
And from the moment each of us came into being, God exclaimed, "This is my child!" In Psalm 139:13-16, the writer marvels:
"You are the one who created my innermost parts;
you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb.
14 I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.
Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.
15 My bones weren’t hidden from you
when I was being put together in a secret place,
when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my embryo,
and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me..."
He was at there in the delivery room, saw us take our first steps and was there for our first kiss and all the important, joyful times in our lives. He is also with us for every ordinary day and every heartbreaking hour. I believe God is with us even at our death.
Baptism is not only a physical expression of the cleansing power of Christ's blood and our forgiveness of sins, but it is also a very tangible and public way that God tells the world, "This is my child!" It's as if He labeled us with a permanent marker, "I belong to God." Permanent, because God relentless loves us unconditionally, even before we know who God is, even when we reject Him.
Baptism is also our own declaration to the world that we are children of God, the God who through His Son's life, death and resurrection broke the death hold that sin had on us. It was through Christ that God announced to each of us, "You are my child; you are worth dying for."
Every year, on the Sunday commemorating the Lord's Baptism, we have the opportunity to reaffirm our baptismal vows and "remember our baptism and be glad." Some of us can't remember our baptism because we were baptized as infants, but we can remember what our baptism means to us, that we are children of God, redeemed and forgiven through Christ.
Luke 3:15-22
You see them at ball games and dance recitals, graduations and weddings -- the proud fathers who cheer their children on with beaming faces and sometimes a tear in their eyes. "That's my child!" their action declare to the world.
Some of us have fathers like that, and some of us have fathers who are not so present, so involved, so encouraging and supporting. Some of us have spent our lives, trying with everything we are to somehow earn the validation we never had as children. Whatever our relationship was like with our earthly fathers, a story about a day down at the river reminds us that we have a Father who is loves us in a way no human being can.
When Christ was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, God enthusiastically breaks into human reality and proudly declares, "This is my son!"
This wasn't the first time God did this. There were the angels and the shepherds at Jesus' birth and the star and the magi a few years later. Later, on a mountain top with Jesus' face shining with his Father's glory, God again announces to the world, "This is my son!"
And from the moment each of us came into being, God exclaimed, "This is my child!" In Psalm 139:13-16, the writer marvels:
"You are the one who created my innermost parts;
you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb.
14 I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.
Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.
15 My bones weren’t hidden from you
when I was being put together in a secret place,
when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my embryo,
and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me..."
He was at there in the delivery room, saw us take our first steps and was there for our first kiss and all the important, joyful times in our lives. He is also with us for every ordinary day and every heartbreaking hour. I believe God is with us even at our death.
Baptism is not only a physical expression of the cleansing power of Christ's blood and our forgiveness of sins, but it is also a very tangible and public way that God tells the world, "This is my child!" It's as if He labeled us with a permanent marker, "I belong to God." Permanent, because God relentless loves us unconditionally, even before we know who God is, even when we reject Him.
Baptism is also our own declaration to the world that we are children of God, the God who through His Son's life, death and resurrection broke the death hold that sin had on us. It was through Christ that God announced to each of us, "You are my child; you are worth dying for."
Every year, on the Sunday commemorating the Lord's Baptism, we have the opportunity to reaffirm our baptismal vows and "remember our baptism and be glad." Some of us can't remember our baptism because we were baptized as infants, but we can remember what our baptism means to us, that we are children of God, redeemed and forgiven through Christ.
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