Mark 1:29-39

As far as I know, I’ve never healed a sick person – and I’m almost certain I’ve never cast a demon out of anyone. I’m pretty sure I’d remember that if it had happened. And not only have I never done these things, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else do them either. These are the easy miracles too. What about making the lame walk or giving sight to the blind? That’s tough stuff. I’ve definitely never seen that happen. My guess is that you all haven’t seen these kinds of miracles either.

I’ve got to admit that, because I’ve never seen these things happen, I find it hard to believe that they still do or even that they could. It’s hard to believe in what you can’t see. So when people tell stories of miracles they’ve seen I’m always a bit doubtful. I wonder if they’ve misunderstood what happened, or if they’re just telling the story that way because they want to believe it themselves. Maybe I should just trust these stories unless I have good reason not to, but I find them hard to believe. If I’d seen even one miracle myself I’d probably find it easier to believe that miracles happened, but I haven’t. When it comes to miracles, I’m a skeptic.

The fact that we don’t see miracles now can make it hard to believe in the miracles of the Bible. We wonder if we just live in a different time; maybe miracles happened back then but they don’t anymore. Or maybe you wonder if the stories of miracles are true – especially when they mention demons. I mean, who actually believes that people can literally be possessed by demons? Do any of you have a demon? Do you know anyone who has a demon? Have you ever once in your life considered the possibility that people can be demon-possessed? I’ve got to say, I find the whole idea of demon-possession disturbing. I don’t like the idea of an evil supernatural being inhabiting my body, or anyone else’s. Most Christians now probably think that people used to talk about demons before they understood things like mental illness or genetic disorders. And maybe this is right, but the Bible sure seems to talk about demons like they actually exist.

So I never really know what to say about passages like the one we just read. On the one hand, it just doesn’t seem that interesting: we’re told that Jesus healed some people, which is exactly the sort of thing that most of us expect Jesus to do. But on the other hand, healings like these are so hard to believe because we’ve never seen anything like that. It’s difficult for us to make sense of anything that falls outside of our experience. So what do we say about these miracles?

Well, the truth is that the entire Christian faith is built upon miracles. A miracle is something that defies the laws of nature, or anything contrary to way things normally work in the world. Some things are really unlikely, but that does not make them miracles. For instance, Nissa beating me at Ping-Pong is exceedingly unlikely – almost impossible – but, if it somehow happened, it would be wrong to call it a miracle.

But the virgin birth is a miracle. This isn’t the normal way people come into the world. I assume you know enough about the birds and the bees to know that usually two people are involved in making a baby. We only know of one case when a child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ life on Earth began with a miracle and it ended with a miracle as well. It’s not every day that someone returns to life after having been dead for a couple of days and buried in the ground. This is a miracle, and, in fact, it is the central belief of our faith. Everything Christians believe depends on the resurrection. If we believe that God can raise Jesus from the dead – and that God will raise us from the dead – then shouldn’t we be able to believe that Jesus could perform miracles?

But for the first believers it worked the other way around. They believed Jesus was special in part because they saw the miracles he performed. Have you ever wondered why Jesus didn’t perform even more miracles? Why didn’t he go around healing everyone, giving sight to every blind person, and even raising all the dead? Couldn’t he have done this? Maybe, but he didn’t. In fact, in Mark especially, when Jesus performed miracles he told the people who received it and who saw it not to tell anyone. It seems like he wanted to keep it a secret, which is probably just the opposite of what’d you expect. Wouldn’t Jesus want as many people as possible to see the miracles? Wouldn’t that make more people believe? Possibly, but it’s almost as if Jesus didn’t really want that many followers. Unlike most church leaders, Jesus never seemed at all interested in numbers; he really didn’t care much how big his following was.

So Jesus didn’t spend all day performing miracles, but he also did more than a few. I’d like to know why, if he was going to perform miracles, he didn’t do a whole lot more than he did. It seems that Jesus didn’t want to gain attention for being a kind of magician; he didn’t want to become a celebrity; he didn’t want his ministry to be about miracles, but about God. So he did want to show signs that he possessed the very power of God, that, in him, a heaven had come to earth, that something new and exciting was happening. Even though he didn’t make all things new in his lifetime, he did demonstrate that he is the one who can and will make all things new. Jesus didn’t want people to put their faith in the miracles but to put faith in him. Some would be tempted to worship the miracle instead of the one who does miracles.

And maybe this is why we don’t often today see the kind of miracles we read about in the Bible. Because what greater miracle can God perform – what greater sign can God provide – than what God has already done by raising Jesus from the dead? It gets no better than that. God has power over death itself. The most important thing has already happened; everything else is just details. In a way, miracles are no longer necessary. We’re called to have faith in what God has already done and in what God will therefore do in the future.

But what about all of us in the last 2000 years or so? We didn’t get to see a blind person receive sight or a lame person made to walk, much less see someone rise from the dead. Wouldn’t it help our faith if we could see more of these things happen? Wouldn’t it be easier to believe in the God who raises people from the dead if we actually saw someone rise from the dead? Maybe – or maybe not. I don’t really know, but, if there are miracles still happening, they’re pretty low-key, and it seems God wants to keep it this way.

For whatever reason, God wants us to walk by faith and not by sight. There’s just no getting around the fact that being a Christian means having faith in who God is, what God has done, is doing, and will do. We like proof better than faith, so often Christians try to prove that God exists or that the claims of the Bible are true. But you can’t prove that the resurrection happened, you can only have faith. In fact, our attempts to prove God might actually demonstrate a lack of faith. And besides, if God were interested in being proven true, surely God could’ve made it a lot easier. But just as Jesus performed miracles and then told people to keep it a secret, so too does God make things harder to see than we think makes sense. All I know is that God wants us to have faith. If someone came up with an argument that proved God’s existence then we would probably quickly make an idol out of it and start worshipping it. But God wants us to worship Him alone, and this means that there aren’t as many or as obvious miracles as we’d probably like.

This does not mean that God isn’t active in the world – hardly. But it does mean that God doesn’t work the ways we might expect. Whatever the case, we do know that God calls us to have faith and to follow Jesus, the one whose very life is a miracle.

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

The first sermon I ever preached was about eight and half years ago, and it was on this passage. It was the summer after my first year of seminary and I was full of knowledge to share to with the world. I got sent to a church in eastern North Carolina near the middle of nowhere for possibly the longest 10 weeks of my life. It would’ve been difficult to find a congregation of people more different than me. I was out of place there and didn’t always connect well with the people. And so when I was given the opportunity to preach my last Sunday there, what did I do? Did I choose to preach from something that would be easy to understand? - of course not. Instead I chose to preach from 1 Corinthians 8, which has to be one of the stranger passages in the New Testament. Why did I do this? Well, part of the answer is surely that I was a bit full of myself, but mostly it was because it was the passage I had spent the whole previous semester studying, so I was really ready to say something – even if no one could understand what I had to say.

When I finished people were polite, but few had anything good to say about my sermon. As I’ve looked back over the years, I’ve slightly regretted the decision that I made. I think it would’ve been much better – and less arrogant – to preach from something a little easier to understand. Well, tonight I’m going to preach on this passage again. It’s still a hard one to understand. Some people would say that it’d be better to only deal with easier passages with youth, but I think you all more capable of understanding than many might give you credit for. Plus this passage has a really important lesson. So it might be difficult to follow, but stick with me; I think you’ll get it.

The Corinthian church wrote to Paul about a disagreement they were having about meat. You might think that meat is a strange thing about which to disagree, but people in churches can disagree about all kinds of things. Perhaps you’ve already learned that. Some disagreements are worth having and some are not. But this one had some Corinthians really upset. Here was the problem… You probably know that people used to sacrifice animals. The Israelites did this in the Old Testament. Christians believed that because Jesus was the final sacrifice they didn’t need to do this anymore. But in the city of Corinth there were lots of people who weren’t Christian or Jewish, who instead believed in other gods. They would sacrifice animals to their gods – what Paul called idols - and then they would sell the meat at the market.

Now some of the Corinthian Christians saw no problem with buying and eating this meat. It was good meat; it came from a regular old cow. They didn’t think it mattered that it had been sacrificed to another god because, after all, those gods weren’t real. What difference could eating it make? It wasn’t like they were worshipping a false God; they were just eating the animals that had been sacrificed. Why let it go to waste? It wasn’t cursed; it didn’t possess special powers; it was just meat like any other.

On the other side, there were some Corinthians who felt strongly that this meat should not be eaten and they were greatly troubled that other Christians would eat it. Although they were Christians who believed that there was only one real God, they still worried about what it might mean to eat animals sacrificed to another God. They thought it was best to avoid any association with those gods, even if they weren’t real and no power. Better to stay away than to give the wrong impression – or worse, find yourself confused about which gods are real and which ones are false. And because many of these Corinthians had probably worshipped these gods before they became Christians, they thought it was best to have nothing to do with them. It really bothered them that other members of their church would eat the meat, so they called upon Paul to settle their argument.

So who won the argument? In a way, they both did. And, in way, neither did. Paul said that the ones who thought that eating the meat was fine were technically right. There is indeed only one God and the meat sacrificed to idols is just meat; there’s nothing wrong with eating it. But the fact that they would continue eating it even though it bothered their brothers and sisters was wrong, Paul said. The meat-eaters knew that there really was nothing wrong with the meat so they went ahead eating it. They thought being right justified their behavior. They thought that because the others were wrong their feelings didn’t matter. They thought something like, “Why should we not do something that’s fine just because it bothers some people who are wrong anyway?” So even though they were right, they were wrong. The truth without love is not the truth.

And this why Paul criticized the meat-eaters, because even though they got the facts right – even though their knowledge was accurate – they weren’t acting in love. He even said that they were sinning against fellow members of the body and against Christ himself. The right thing is the wrong thing if it hurts someone else. And besides, Paul says, eating meat isn’t that important. It’s certainly not something worth hurting another’s faith. He said he’d rather not eat meat at all than possibly cause someone to fall. His example is, of course, Christ who sacrificed by coming to earth and then by dying on the cross because he loved us. Therefore, if we are Christ’s followers we too should be willing to sacrifice for our brothers.

Here’s an example that might make more sense. Many of what we call cusswords don’t actually bother me. Of course, there are some ways of using them I don’t like, but that’s true of many words. Cusswords are really just words like any other. There’s nothing magical about them; they don’t hold any special power. Like eating meat sacrificed to idols, I think Paul would agree that saying certain words is not wrong. But there are many Christians who think these words should not be used and it really troubles them when they hear other people use them – especially other Christians. There are many people who are likely to question the faith of another if they hear that person use certain words. I think this makes about as much sense as some Corinthians questioning the faith of those eating certain foods.

However, while I think it’s true that some words we’ve placed off-limits are words just like meat is meat, out of love for those who feel differently, we should not say these words. If my saying certain words causes someone to fall it would be silly and selfish to insist that it’s fine to use them. It’s not much of a sacrifice not to use the words either – especially when compared with Christ’s sacrifice. Instead of trying to justify our actions to ourselves – as I could do with cusswords – it’s much better to ask ourselves if our actions are loving toward our neighbors. Again, the truth without love is not the truth.

Whenever churches asked Paul to settle disputes he almost never just said which side was right and which was wrong. Instead, he attempted to help them understand their question – and their whole lives – in light of who Christ is and what he has done. Paul reminded the Corinthians that Christ put others before himself and so we ought to do the same. Christ did not just think of himself, but he always acted on behalf of others. When we consider how to behave, what to do or not do, we should always think in terms of how it affects our brothers and sisters. It’s not enough to be “right.” Following the rules, staying within the boundaries, not crossing the line, etc., doesn’t count for much if you’re not loving your neighbor. Sometimes loving our neighbors will mean that we should give up things that that we have a “right” to. This is exactly what Christ did when it came to Earth; he deserved to be served himself, but instead he served us. This is the model for our behavior.

Mark 1:14-20

This week we’re back to the life of Jesus as told by Mark. Two weeks ago we talked about Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River, how the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove when he came up out of the water, and then God declared “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Then Mark spends just two verses telling us that the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness for forty days where he was tempted by Satan and ministered to by the angels. Matthew and Luke tell us about these temptations in greater detail, by Mark seems in a hurry to start talking about Jesus’ ministry. It seems that – if Jesus was not already set to begin his ministry – the arrest of John the Baptist pushed him to start preaching. Mark sums up Jesus’ message like this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the Good News.” That’s a pretty short sermon.

When Jesus says that the kingdom of God has come near, he’s talking about himself. He represents the kingdom of God. In fact, he’s even more than that: he is Christ the King, he is the whole kingdom in a person – but it’s not so easy to see that at this point in the story. Throughout his ministry Jesus will demonstrate this by not just preaching the Good News, but by healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, making the lame to walk, and even raising the dead. In Jesus we get a glimpse of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus the kingdom of God has come from heaven to earth. And the world has been suffering and anticipating their deliverance for a long time. And now, that time is over; it is fulfilled; Jesus is here. This is the Good News Jesus tells us to believe in.

And because the kingdom is here, because we can see it in Jesus, because he shows us in himself God’s love – because of all this and more, Jesus us also calls us to repent. Before Jesus showed up maybe we had an excuse, but how can we go on living like we were once Jesus is here, once the Kingdom has come, once some of heaven has come to earth? We can’t – or we shouldn’t. The word repent is one we don’t use so much anymore, but it simply means to turn. If you’re walking one direction, repentance would be turn around and walk the other direction. Jesus calls us to turn from whichever direction we were headed and to follow him. Now that Jesus is here we can see more clearly which way we need to turn. And we have to constantly repent because we constantly turn the wrong direction, so we have to turn back to following Jesus. This is why we confess our sins every week. We never stop repenting and God never stops forgiving.

And then in the next scene we find Jesus walking along the Sea of Galilee, when he comes across two brothers, Simon and Andrew. They were fishermen, and they were doing what fishermen do: they were fishing, casting their nets into the sea. And then Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” We’re told that immediately they dropped their nets and followed him. This really is a remarkable story. Imagine if you were at your job or school or doing whatever it is you do, and some guy comes along and tells you to follow him. Chances are you’d think he was crazy and you’d try to ignore him. We don’t know if Simon and Andrew had ever seen Jesus before, but the story seems to suggest they had not. So they just dropped their nets and followed this stranger. This is crazy. They left behind everything they had, all they owned, their job, their family and friends, just because some guy told them to follow him, and that he’d make them fish for people. Why would they do this?

I guess the obvious answer is that the followed him because he’s Jesus, as if following Jesus is the obvious thing to do. But there are plenty of people who didn’t follow him then and there are plenty of people who don’t follow him now. It doesn’t seem so obvious to most people that they ought to follow Jesus. And Simon and Andrew decide to follow Jesus without really knowing who he is. This might’ve been the first time they’d seen or heard of him. They really have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. They don’t know where this journey is going to lead; they don’t know how the story is going to end, with the apparent defeat in death followed closely by the triumph of resurrection. They know none of this. They simply followed Jesus because he called.

In many ways, we’re more like Simon and Andrew than we realize. The truth is that you never really know what you’re getting into when you decide to follow Jesus; when he calls you don’t know where life is going to go. And we don’t really know who Jesus is until we start to follow him. Maybe you’re not so sure about Jesus yourself. Maybe you’ve been around church for a while and heard many people tell you to follow Jesus, but you’re just not sure if that’s something you really want to do. Or maybe you’re new to all this you’ve never before heard the call to follow him. You’d probably like to know if following Jesus will be worth it; you want to know if it’ll make life better; you’d like to follow Jesus but follow some other things as well. But the only way to get to know Jesus is to be like Simon and Andrew, to decide to follow him before you even know what you’re doing. They took a risk, one that in many ways didn’t make sense. For us too, deciding to follow Jesus might not make sense – at least in our minds – but we do it anyway. It’s the only way to find out. So whoever you are and wherever you are on the journey, I encourage you to follow Jesus. I doubt you’ll regret it. For one thing, unlike Simon and Andrew, we do know how the story ends. It’s not always easy along the way, but it ends very well.

The hardest thing about following Jesus is that it might mean we have to leave our old life behind. Simon and Andrew left they’re home, everything they owned, even their families to follow Jesus. It might not always be dramatic for us, but following Jesus should change our lives. Simon and Andrew didn’t say, “We believe in you Jesus, we’ve got you in our hearts, but we’re going to keep fishing.” We’d probably like to keep our lives the way they are but just add a little bit of Jesus to them, but this isn’t really an option. Jesus doesn’t want us to believe in him; he wants us to follow him, and that means we leave some things behind, we go some new places, and we do some crazy things, and we love some unlovable people. Jesus doesn’t want us to follow form a distance, he wants us to be right there with him, doing the things he does, going the places he goes, loving the people he loves. This is a great challenge, but it’s also a great adventure. You could stay with what you know and all that’s comfortable, or you could follow Jesus.

And when we follow Jesus he makes us part of his mission and gives us work to do. Simon and Andrew may have left their nets behind, but Jesus gave them a new job: now they would fish for people. For this work they didn’t need nets – and hopefully they weren’t using fishing hooks either (that would hurt). Instead they would be catching people by preaching the Good News and by living a different kind of life. Following Jesus means that our lives are focused outwardly; just as he came to serve, we too serve others. To follow Jesus means we’re about his business, we’re doing the things he does, which means that we’re on mission in the world. He takes our talents and abilities and puts them to a new use. Jesus calls you to follow him. Will you listen?

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Tonight we’re going to talk about sex. Perhaps you’re surprised or even disappointed that I’ve been here six months and we haven’t talked about sex yet. Or perhaps you’re happy it’s taken this long and you’d be more comfortable if we just didn’t talk about it for another six months – or ever. We’re surrounded by a culture that talks about sex non-stop and yet we don’t really like discussing it at church. It’s like we think that if we don’t talk about it then people won’t do it. But people do have sex and the Bible does talk about it. It’s good to shed a little light in the darkness – and on what happens in the darkness. So tonight we talk about sex because that’s one of the things Paul wrote about to the Corinthians.

But Paul isn’t talking only about sex in the passage we read. In the final verse of the chapter he writes, “Glorify God with your body.” That’s really what this passage is about; sex just happens to be something especially important we do with our bodies. But the bigger question is, What are our bodies for? This might seem like a strange thing to ask. But God created us and gave us bodies – Why? And what then should we do with them? If I gave you some clay or Legos and asked you to make something, you would know better than me or anyone else what you made was for, because you were its creator. The same is obviously true of God. God wasn’t just goofing around when He created us. God made us on purpose and made us for a purpose – and God knows best what that purpose is. We have bodies for a reason, and that reason is to glorify God.

And how do we glorify God with our bodies? It begins with doing the things we were designed to do. The first thing Paul talks about is food. He quotes back to the Corinthians something they seem to have first written to him, that “All things are lawful for me.” They seem to be suggesting that they have freedom in Christ to do whatever they wish. Christ has set us free from the law, they say, so we can do what we want. Paul doesn’t disagree, but he adds, “But not all things are beneficial.” It’s true that in Christ we are free, for instance, to eat sticks of better like they’re bananas, but this isn’t beneficial. It’s true that you can successfully consume sticks of butter, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for you – it doesn’t mean that’s what your mouth and stomach are for. Suppose I needed to dig a hole; with enough effort, I could probably manage to dig a hole using this guitar, but that’s not really what guitars are for; I’d be better off using a shovel. And if I wanted to play music for worship, I could probably bang out a beat with my shovel, but that’s not what it’s for; I’d be better off using the guitar. Just because you can do something doesn’t make it a good idea.

We should never think having the ability or even the desire to do something means it’s good to do it. When faced with a temptation we’ll often ask ourselves the question, “Why not?” And sometimes this is helpful. But a better question is almost always “Why?” It’s one thing not to be able to come up with a bad reason for doing something; it’s another thing to be able to come up with a good reason for doing something. For everything we do we ought to be able to ask why and have a good answer. There’s really no good answer to answer the question “Why should I eat sticks of butter like bananas?” We could do it, yes, but it wouldn’t be beneficial. We were made for better than that.

Paul also says that he will not be mastered or dominated by anything. How many people do you know are dominated by their need for caffeine, who can’t function without coffee or Mountain Dew? These things are not bad in moderation, but if we use them too much they can begin to control us. This is true for just about everything we might put in our bodies.

But food is not really that complicated compared to sex. Obviously the stomach is for food; that’s why God gave us stomachs. God made us for sex as well. I suppose you know that that’s how we all got here in the first place. We are all the result of sex, however unpleasant that thought. And we are all capable of sex too, just like we are all capable of eating. But just as there are some foods we should eat and some we should not, there are some situations when sex is beneficial to us and there are some when it is harmful. God made our bodies for sex – that’s part of our purpose – so God also set the boundaries for when sex is good and when it is not.

In Genesis we read that God made Adam and Eve for each other that the two became “one flesh.” In verse 16, Paul quotes this verse, and his point is that whenever two people have sex it is as if they become one flesh, they are united. Whenever we have sex – whoever we have sex with – we become united to that person in ways that cannot simply be undone. This will sound strange, but in the view of the Bible, having sex is like marrying someone. The two become one. Our culture tells us that we can have sex without consequences, that we can have friends with benefits, that it’s not a big deal – but this view fails to comprehend the depth and the mystery of what sex is. We tend to think of sex as just a physical act, something we do that makes us feel good. But sex is the joining of two people together into one, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. This is the way our bodies, minds and souls work. In sex two people give themselves to one another, they know one another, they bind themselves together. So Paul forces the Corinthians – and Paul forces us – to consider who it is we unite ourselves with.

Because God created us all, this is true for both Non-Christians and Christians alike. But to the church Paul adds another argument. He reminds us that, in baptism, we have becomes members of the Body of Christ, members of Christ himself. And not only that, anyone united to the Lord is one Spirit with him. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And in baptism, because we die to ourselves and rise to new life in Christ, our lives are no longer our own. We have been bought with a price; we belong to God. Therefore we should glorify God with our bodies, and this means we should not have sex with just anyone anytime. God is glorified when we use our bodies as intended, and this, of course, is best for us too. Because we were made so that sex binds us together, we should only have sex with a person to whom we’ve committed ourselves for life.

This is why Christians don’t believe we should have sex outside of marriage. Not because sex outside of marriage isn’t enjoyable – it probably is – and definitely not because waiting until you’re married to have sex makes sex even better – it almost certainly doesn’t. We wait to have sex because we believe that sex makes us one flesh, and we should only be made one with one person for life. Otherwise we’re binding ourselves together and then tearing ourselves apart.

And although Paul doesn’t mention it here, sex is obviously the way we procreate. It’s no coincidence then that the relationship in which we should have sex – marriage – is also the relationship in which we are able to welcome children into the world. You really shouldn’t have sex with anyone with whom you’re not ready to welcome a child into the world; and you shouldn’t welcome a child into the world with anyone you’re not planning to be with as long as you both shall live. This is another way of saying that it’s best to have sex only within marriage, where it was intended.

Paul also tells us that when we have sex outside the confines of marriage we are sinning against the body itself, because we are then using our bodies in ways other than God intended. He’s saying that when you have sex outside of marriage you’re not so much sinning against God as you are sinning against yourself. You’re the one you hurt. Now obviously you all are surrounded by people who have sex and chances are that some of you have as well. I have no desire to condemn anyone for their actions. Instead, I urge you to glorify God with your bodies by using them for the purposes God created. This is good for you and it’s to God’s glory.

And we can always look to Jesus who took on flesh – who had a body – and showed us how to live, how to glorify God with our bodies. And just as his body was raised in glory, we believe that our bodies will rise with him. And then, one day, we’ll be given new bodies with which we’ll glorify God forever.

Mark 1:4-11

This past Sunday was New Year’s Day – at least on the world’s calendar – but in the church calendar the first day of the year was in late November when we began advent. Every year we tell the whole story of Jesus, from beginning to end. So in advent we start from the time before Jesus was born, when people were still looking forward to the arrival of the Messiah. Then, of course, at Christmas we celebrate that God has come to us – that God has become one of us – in the person Jesus. Over the next several weeks we’ll focus on Jesus’ life and ministry, and then, beginning with Ash Wednesday, we’ll enter Lent, the time when we think about Jesus’ sacrifice. On Good Friday we’ll remember his death, but on Easter we’ll celebrate the resurrection. And then we’ll spend the rest of the year in what we call “Ordinary Time” – the “ordinary” reality that the risen Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven, and we look forward to his return. This is our reality, and so every year we tell the story so that it will become even more real to us.

So what part of the story are we telling this week? After Jesus is born, what’s the next thing that happens in the Gospels? Other than in Luke, which tells a brief story about Jesus in the temple at age 12, the Gospels go straight from Jesus’ birth to his baptism. And, in fact, Mark doesn’t even talk about Jesus’ birth but instead begins with his baptism. If the Gospel were a TV series Jesus’ baptism would be in the second or third episode. That’s where we are today.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus gets baptized? We get baptized as a means of entering a new life with Jesus – but Jesus is life himself. We get baptized to represent the forgiveness of sins – but Jesus did not sin. We get baptized to join the Body of Christ – but Jesus is the Christ. So why does he get baptized? Isn’t this a bit confusing?

Well, there are few reasons. The first is that he wanted to support and be a part of the movement that John the Baptist started. You’ll remember that it was John’s job to prepare the way for Jesus, and one of the ways he did this was by calling people to repent of their sins and be baptized. Even though he Jesus had no sins to repent of, he still wanted to bless what John was doing, so he was baptized himself.

Of course, even as he baptized, John told the people that while he baptized with water, there was one coming who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. He was talking about Jesus, of course. And so what happens when Jesus was baptized? The heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. Throughout the New Testament, the Holy Spirit and baptism are linked, like in the passage we read from Acts. Sometime someone is baptized and then then the Holy Spirit comes upon them, the other times a person receives the Holy Spirit and then obvious next step is baptism. The two go together, though it’s hard to say exactly how.

Like Jesus, we believe that when we are baptized that the Holy Spirit comes upon us. I was told this before I was baptized, and so when I came up out of the water I was sort of expecting something to happen, to feel different. I remember being at school a few days later and looking down at my chest and wondering if the Holy Spirit was inside of me, because it didn’t seem to be. Perhaps you all have had a similar experience. You thought you were supposed to come up out of the baptismal waters a changed person, very aware that the Spirit was inside you. And perhaps this really happened, though I expect most of us had a kind of ordinary experience at our baptism.

So where is the Holy Spirit? And an even better question – what is the Holy Spirit? I’ve got to admit, I’ve never figured out good answers to these questions. The Holy Spirit is a mysterious thing. The Bible compares is to the wind; you can’t see it or tell exactly what it’s up to, but you can feel it and see it effects. I wish I could see the Spirit and I wish I knew what it was up to; I’d like to feel it more than I do. We’ll talk more about the Holy Spirit in a few weeks, but for now, know this: the Spirit is with you and –even better – the Spirit is with us. It is God’s presence active in the world; it is God, Father, Son and… Holy Spirit. The Spirit came upon Jesus, and when we gather in his name, the Spirit is with us as well. I’d like to prove this to you, but this one of those things we take by faith.

The other thing that I would’ve liked to have had happen at my baptism is to hear God speak. When Jesus was baptized a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Nothing like this happened when I was baptized, and I’m guessing it didn’t happen for you either. I think it would be nice if every once in a while we heard God speak out loud, but most of us aren’t so lucky. Even in New Testament God doesn’t speak all that often. So why does God speak here?

Well, between his birth and baptism Jesus apparently kept a low profile. He led an ordinary life as a carpenter and no one treated him like he was special. But then when the time came to begin his public ministry Jesus went to be baptized and for the sake of all that were there – and maybe even for Jesus himself – God declared who Jesus is; Jesus is the Son of God. Up to that point few people knew who Jesus really was, but Jesus’ baptism told the world who Jesus is.

The same is true for our baptisms too. When we were baptized, we told the world who we were, we told the world that we belong to Jesus. And although we probably didn’t hear a voice, when we were baptized God says about us “You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased.” We may not be the Son of God, but we are all children of God. I should probably tell you more than I do that God loves you.

Hopefully you remember that during D-Now we talked a lot about baptism. We talked about how in baptism we make Jesus’ story our story; we are buried with him in death and raised with him to new life. So are baptism affects everything about our lives for the rest of our lives. Just as Jesus’ baptism announced who he was and began his ministry in the world, our baptisms also announce who we are and they begin our own ministry in the world.

So tonight, if you have been baptized, remember that moment when you were lowered into the water and then raised out of it. Think about the commitment you made then – even if you weren’t entirely sure what you were doing. Realize that you belong to Christ and that your life should conform to his. And rejoice that God loves you had has made you his own.

If you have not been baptized God loves you just as much, so I urge you to make Jesus’ story your story, to make his life your life, to die to yourself and rise to live a new life. If you’re not sure if baptism is all that important, consider that Jesus himself was baptized. And perhaps this is the main reason why he was: so that in his baptism – as in all things – he gave us an example of what we ought to do. So if you’ve been baptized or if you have not – either way – follow Jesus.