The Holy Spirit descends and remains upon Christ at his baptism. In our sacramental lives and the life of our city, this pattern continues to this day. God is continually coming down to stay.

Vicar Erik C. Nelson
January 18, 2026
Texts: Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

I’ve probably talked about it too much, but in case you haven’t heard, I went to Sweden last summer. And it will surprise no one to hear that I demanded we go into every church we found. One of my favorites was a small village church on the west coast, a church built by my ancestors and their neighbors in the mid-1800s.

In that church, above the pulpit was something familiar but also unfamiliar. They had a bird hanging there, a symbol of the Holy Spirit descending on the preacher. But instead of being all white, like we might expect, it was painted gray and black, with green and purple around the neck.

I asked the steward why they had a pigeon hanging above the pulpit instead of a dove, and she explained that in Swedish, like many other languages, they only have one word for pigeons and doves, because they’re actually the same animal.

When my ancestors heard today’s gospel reading in their heart language, they heard the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a pigeon, the beautiful, clumsy, iridescent gray and black, green and purple birds that lived among them.

As I thought about that, I fell in love with the idea of the Holy Spirit as a pigeon, not a dove.

When we think of a dove, we think of something we see at weddings and graduations, flying away from us. A dove is a pure, white thing, that flies high up in the air, above us all.

When we think of pigeons, it’s very different. Pigeons have lived among us for thousands of years, so this is where they want to be — down here, on the ground, with us. They live with us in the muck and mess of the world.

In our Gospel reading, the main thing the Holy Spirit does is come down and stay. The Holy Spirit doesn’t float above us, staying far off. The Holy Spirit comes down and joins Jesus in the muddy, mucky water of the Jordan River.

That’s what the Holy Spirit always does. That’s what God does. The central message of Christianity is that God comes down to us and stays.

But on days like today, in weeks like the last few, it can be hard to know where God is among us. It’s difficult to see the Holy Spirit descending and remaining.

In some ways, I do see the Holy Spirit in our city. In the midst of our collective heartbreak, I see the Holy Spirit as the community comes together to march for justice and liberation. I hear the Holy Spirit in whistles and horns that warn neighbors to seek shelter. I see the Holy Spirit descending and remaining as volunteers bring groceries to people in hiding. 

But if I’m honest, I want more than that. I want to see God come down in bigger ways. I want to see giant hands coming down from heaven to save us. I wish we didn’t have to march for justice. I wish our neighbors didn’t have to hide. I want God to act quickly and boldly to save us.

I want to believe what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, that we are not lacking in any gift as we wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to believe that God will strengthen us to the end.

Even as we wait for God, I do believe that God is faithful.

I see God’s faithfulness in the community coming together in acts of love and service. I see God’s faithfulness in the care this congregation has for each other and their neighbors. I see God’s faithfulness in God’s presence in this place.

A couple weeks ago, on the day our neighbor Renee was shot, I came here to pray in the church. I was moved to tears, thinking about our belief that Christ becomes truly present in this room, every time we gather for worship. Right there. (pointing at the spot where the presider stands to distribute the Body.)

Not in a metaphorical or symbolic way. But we believe that he is really present here. He’s here, in this neighborhood that has experienced far more than its fair share of pain.

Seven blocks from where George Floyd was killed by his government. Six blocks from where Renee Good was killed by her government. In this room, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, killed by his government, comes to us. Right here.

Into the most difficult of places, God is always coming to us to stay.

The baptism in the Jordan is the messy beginning of Jesus’s ministry. A ministry that we know can only lead one place: the cross. The ways of this world that demand purity and uniformity, submission and compliance, will always clash with God’s way.

Isaiah reminds us that God loves outsiders. God loves the one “deeply despised, abhorred by the nations.” The one regarded as a “slave of rulers” is the one God uses to cast down the monarchs and chieftains.

God shows us strength through vulnerability, salvation through sacrifice. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, takes away the sin of the world, not through conquest with angel armies or heavenly occupation, but in his love poured out for us in his innocent suffering and death.

God in Christ has already reached his arm down from heaven to save us, stretching them out on the cross. Showing us an embrace wide enough to take in the whole world.

On the cross, Christ took all our pain, all our suffering, all our heavy burdens upon himself.

And in his dying, he overcame death. He passed through the pain and the grief and the weight of this world, and overturned it all. So now we have the promise that wherever we encounter death, God has new life waiting. Resurrection is coming.

As Jesus says to the disciples, “come and see.” I say come and see new life in the middle of a land under imperial occupation. In a city that knows too much tragedy, in the heartland of a rotting empire, eternal life springs forth.

New life springs forth in our sacramental life, as God comes down to us and stays with us. New life springs forth in the life of this city, as neighbors come together and sacrifice for each other, giving up their time, money, privilege, safety.

As followers of Jesus, there is no promise that our days will be easy. We have no guarantee of safety. But the promise we have is the promise that we are God’s beloved. The Holy Spirit has come down to us and remains with us now.

The Holy Spirit keeps coming down to us. Again and again and again.

And so, we live, filled with the Spirit. The Spirit whose iridescent beauty finds us in the muck and mud and mess and leads forever into new life.

Thanks be to God.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

You are called in baptism to be Christ’s light in the world, and you will be enough, with the help and grace of God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Baptism of Our Lord, Lect. 1 A
Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Since the Day of Pentecost, the Church claims we share the same call and purpose as Jesus.

That we are Christ, Anointed, in our baptism, God’s Beloved, just like Jesus was. That Isaiah’s promises to and about the Servant of God today, which we easily connect to Jesus, also apply to you. To me.

It’s audacious to say. That God has given you as a covenant, you as the sign in the flesh of God’s promised love for all things. And that God has given you as a light to the nations. To help people who cannot see to see, to bring the light of God’s justice to the world.

From the beginning of this liturgy, when we blessed waters and gave thanks to God for this gift, until the end when we are sent out in peace to love and serve as Christ, this day claims this is your call, the life you are meant to be for the world.

But today it not only feels audacious to say this. It feels a little naïve.

We can barely breathe this week for anguish and despair, anger and sadness. For the second time in six years our neighborhood is a national focus point because of government sponsored murder and once again we feel helpless to change anything. Agents of our government shoot and kill just blocks from this building. Even that we have to say Renee Good was innocent, which she was, is jarring. Would it have been OK if she wasn’t? Is that now the world we live in? Evil and wickedness work freely in our world and threaten our neighbors, our friends. Us. It’s overwhelming.

The idea that you or I could be God’s covenant in the flesh, God’s light in such darkness, seems laughable. How can we make any difference for God in this? As we mourn Renee and all those who are being disappeared by ICE, as we mourn the absence of safety for nearly anyone these days, it’s hard to see what we can do.

And yet: in a few moments we’re going to affirm our baptism and the promises made there, however audacious or naïve they might be. We will do four important things that will show a way forward.

First, we will renounce evil.

Loudly, with passion, like you always do. We will claim in no uncertain terms the ground on which we stand. That we renounce all spiritual and satanic powers of evil, all evil powers of the world, even any evil within us that works against God’s love and will for the world.

You promise today to work against any evil, denounce and renounce it, and pray to have removed. You commit to never make accommodations with evil, or ignore it, or believe its lies and the stories it spins to deceive.  

What can you do in these days? Stand up against evil as a beloved child of God, and let the world know where you stand.

Next we will confess our faith.

Using the ancient baptismal creed, we will claim our trust that God’s grace has come into the world and still comes. That we believe in a creating God who lovingly made all things, and who came to this world in person to bring love to bear against all the sin and evil of the world, even breaking death, so all God’s children could know the love of God.

We will claim we believe God’s Spirit calls us together as a people of God, enlightens us with the light of God so we can see in the world’s darkness, and makes us God’s holy people. Even when we doubt we are.

What can you do in these days? Claim the love of God that made and saved the universe and belongs to you and to all people. And let the world know that love.

Then we’ll promise to live as Christ.

We will promise to be God’s covenant and light in the world, as Isaiah said. To stay in this community of faith and be fed in Word and Sacrament for our mission. To proclaim God’s Good News in all we say and all we do, and to serve the world as Jesus did, working for justice and peace wherever we can.

Today you will claim your baptismal mission to be God’s Light in the world for love and Good News and justice and peace, however you can be.

One of our four year olds at Mount Olive – if you’re not asking these questions, our children are – one of our four year olds stopped me after church a couple weeks ago and said, “I want to know how Jesus is the light of the world.” And I told him that whenever he was kind and loving to someone, that showed them God’s love. It was like a light in a dark place. And that when Jesus has him doing that, and the person who was standing with us doing that, and me doing that, light spreads in the world.

How is Jesus the light of the world in this terrible time? When you are. It’s that simple.

And last we will pray for the Holy Spirit.

For the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God, the Spirit of joy in God’s presence.

You will ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom and understanding when all you know right now is confusion and fear. To give you counsel, advice, when you don’t know what steps you can take, and the strength to do what you are called to do. To give you joy when despair fills your heart.

God promises to give you all this. How can you live in these days? Go into your baptismal mission with the Holy Spirit giving you all you need to be who you are called to be.

There is no easy answer for how things will get better.

But we all will do what we can as Anointed Ones, some going to protests and vigils, some working on the politics, some organizing. Some doing the many things our Neighborhood Ministry Coordinator Jim suggested in an email last week, like helping people get their groceries, or watching out for neighbors. All this is good.

And it all starts with your baptism. You are anointed as Christ for the world. Not to fix everything. But to be God’s covenant promise that others can see, as Isaiah said, God’s light that pierces the darkness.

And that’s enough. Nothing more is asked of you than you bring whatever light you can shine today. Whatever kindness or love you can bring today, as Christ in the world.

That’s how we will live in these days. And God’s light will shine.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen