The path of healing into Christly love hurts, but leads to life; the path of not healing into Christly love also hurts, ourselves and others, and leads to death.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, year A
   Texts: Matthew 5:21-37; Deuteronomy 30:15-20

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

Healing hurts. There’s no way around it.

A good doctor will tell us this. If your heart has five blocked arteries, your sternum needs to be opened, veins from other parts of your body cut out and grafted onto your heart, bypassing the blockages. A good doctor will tell you this is going to hurt, a lot. A good doctor will tell you if you don’t do this, you won’t find healing.

Today Jesus gets to the heart of loving our neighbor as ourselves, the fulfilling of God’s law. But Jesus uses such a graphic metaphor for what this will take, we shudder at the words. Obviously he doesn’t want us to cut out parts of our body, but we wish he hadn’t said it at all.

But Jesus is saying the truth: the path to healing hurts. He’s being a good doctor. He’s saying we need to be prepared for what it will cost us to follow Christ’s path. Things as dear to us as our eyes and hands will need to be cut out of our lives to find the healing of loving God and loving neighbor. Healing hurts. There’s no way around it.

Jesus interprets God’s law as comprehensive.

He taught that God’s law means to change our hearts, make us new people. So we, and all the world, would find God’s planned wholeness and healing. Saying the whole law of God is fulfilled by love of God and love of neighbor, on the one hand made it very easy. It’s simple to remember: love God, love neighbor.

On the other hand, it made it very hard. Jesus describes a fulfilling that covers everything. “Love God with all you have” leaves no room for anything but God as the center of your being and attention and devotion. No self-idolatry, no wiggling around what you’d rather do instead of what God asks of you. “Love your neighbor as yourself” likewise is complete coverage. There are no circumstances where Jesus envisions an answer other than love for those who are our neighbor. And here and elsewhere, Jesus makes it clear this category covers everyone. No exceptions.

Jesus pits himself against the legalists, the defenders of God’s law.

“You have heard it said . . . but I say to you,” is his line.

He takes on the Fifth Commandment. “You shall not kill.” That should be easy to keep. Except from the beginning God’s people parsed this, distinguished between murder and killing, and said the commandment was against murder. The Church parsed it and said killing in war isn’t breaking the commandment, if the war is just. And spent centuries arguing about when war is God’s will.

Jesus destroys that argument by saying physical killing is the lowest bar. He assumes all killing is against God’s will, and goes deeper. Christ says even anger, and insulting, and mocking, break this commandment. If my making fun of someone breaks the Fifth Commandment, there’s no hope God supports any taking of human life.

He takes on the Sixth Commandment. “You shall not commit adultery.” That also seems easy. Except Jesus speaks a word millions today still don’t understand, that at the heart of the human problem with sexuality is our objectification of other people. Christ says if you lust after someone in your heart you’ve already broken this commandment.

Christ says to straight men, and men in general, “you’ve got a serious problem. You view women as objects, and as sexual objects, and that is destructive and leads to death.” He says how we view others and think about them is as powerful as how we actually treat them. Because it affects how we treat them.

Whenever you have a written law, you can find ways around it: What really does “kill” mean? Surely there’s no harm in a little fantasy?

But God’s law is intended to bring life. The only way it can is if it utterly changes our hearts: cracks open our sternum, replaces the way our hearts and minds work.

That’s going to hurt. No loopholes, no gaps, no excuses. This is major surgery, and makes his metaphor about eyes and hands seem tame.

Now do you see why Jesus says following him is like losing your life, it’s taking up a cross?

But why go through this pain, then? Well, have you seen the world?

A world that believes God wants us to kill others has given us endless destruction that flows across this earth. Anger pulses through our culture today, unfiltered, explosive, and endangers us all. Social media and public discourse are hamstrung by personal attacks and mockery, insults and name-calling. (And we’re no better if we indulge in the same things toward those we dislike.) Life has little value, respect and care for others is absent at the highest levels, and across the breadth of our nation.

Do you really want to tell Jesus he doesn’t understand the problem?

2,000 years after Jesus told men not to objectify women, that problem couldn’t be worse. Ask any woman about her experience in the world, at work, at school, whether she has experienced being demeaned, treated as an object, been leered at, experienced sexual harassment. Most will tell you they have. And statistics suggest that one in four women in this country have experienced sexual assault, including rape. Twenty-five percent.

Do you really want to tell Jesus he doesn’t understand the problem?

And these are just two problems Jesus points out. He applies the same prescription – full, unfiltered love – to every aspect of our lives. If it isn’t anger or lust, perhaps for you it’s pride, or greed, or self-centeredness, or apathy, or many other things. Anything that keeps us from fully loving our neighbor hurts others in this world. That’s the truth Jesus needs us to see.

Look, we want to follow Christ because, as Simon Peter said, he speaks words of eternal life to us.

We hear hope in his words, a promise of God’s love and grace, we see in his death and resurrection our future after we die. We want to be with him. But Jesus needs us to know that he could have forgiven us and brought us to heaven without dying on a cross.

He went to the cross because he lived the life of love of God and love of neighbor that God means for all of us, and we killed him for it. He walked a path of pain and suffering because he was showing healing and life.

If we don’t like the way the world is, and wish God would do something, let’s not pretend the Son of God ignored it. Jesus’ words today – and we’ve only looked at half of his examples – show Christ saw to the heart of the problems of the world and showed a path out of them.

It’s just a hard, painful path. That’s why we hesitate.

We hesitate because our culture tells us the only good life is a pain-free life.

The culture of consumer products is designed to offer results without pain, life without pain. We hear we deserve the best, and it will be easy to get. We’re told suffering of any kind should never happen, and for life to be good, we need to be free of any pain.

But that isn’t true. Any parent, anyone who’s cared for a dependent loved one, knows how hard that can be. There’s inconvenience, frustration, pain, suffering. Our own needs get set aside because love demands it.

Any person who’s gone through 12-step recovery will say the same. There is deep pain and suffering working through recovery from addiction, the pain of letting go of control, of admitting wrongs, of seeking to amend them, of living one day at a time.

But the end result for both is life. Pain and suffering aren’t in and of themselves to be avoided. Healing is painful. All healing. Anyone who’s found life and health can tell you that.

But not seeking healing is also painful. Consider those blocked arteries: surgery will be exceedingly painful, but a good life is possible afterward. Avoiding surgery will eventually kill the heart, while the pain of the illness continues. If we don’t face the pain of changing, then we’ll keep causing a different pain, hurting people in the world.

So which do you want? If we want a life where we never feel pain, where no one can hurt us, and we don’t have to change, the only way is if we become cruel, selfish people who inflict a great deal of pain on others. The only way to life and love involves vulnerability, and vulnerability involves pain. There’s no way around it.

Thank God Christ is a good doctor. He tells us the truth so we can decide.

We have seen the eternal love of the Triune God in Christ’s words, actions, death, resurrection. We have found hope in Christ’s assurance that we are beloved children of God, and have God’s Spirit within us bringing new life to birth.

Today Christ says this new life is going to hurt. There will be things we need to let go of, things that cannot stay in you or me, that will be painful to face. It will even feel like we’re losing our life, Christ says. But what a gift to know this ahead of time. I would much rather know the truth so I can make the right decision, than deceive myself that there will be an answer that won’t cost anything.

So our last word today is from Moses, who says, “Choose life, that you may live.” And from Jesus, who says, “Choose love, that you may be love.” This is the path we want to walk, in God’s love. Hard as it is. Because life and healing are on the other side. And, since Christ walks with us, they’re along the way, too.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

You are salt; you are light; you are God’s heart. God says you are enough, and will give you what you need, so don’t be afraid, and be who you are, for the sake of the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year A
   Texts: Matthew 5:13-20; Isaiah 58:1-12

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

You are salt. You are light. You are already in God’s kingdom, and are righteous. So – don’t be afraid.

Don’t be afraid, even if what we’ve just heard from God’s Word seemed heavy and frightening. Especially on top of all that disturbs us in our world today.

Democratic practices that have served us for centuries are threatened, ignored, dismantled. Nations with whom we’ve long been friends are rudely insulted and treated as nothing. And the first flurry of action from our new government has threatened and caused harm to the weakest, the most vulnerable, whether it’s the people or the earth itself.

And we come here for hope, for rest, but the news feels no better. Isaiah frightens with warnings and judgments. Jesus promises no slack, for none of God’s law is abolished, all, to the last letter, must be done, and if we are not exceeding in our righteousness, it won’t be well for us.

But don’t be afraid. Things are not as they might seem, at least not with God. You already know this. This truth was here, too, in these same Scriptures today. But in case you need extra medicine, remember our brother Paul: nothing, nothing, can separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus. Nothing can.

So don’t be afraid. You might just have mislaid the truth you already knew.

You are salt. You are light. You are already in God’s kingdom, and are righteous. So – remember what that means.

Salt is gift. Salt keeps precious things from going rotten. Salt brings flavor and beauty to what otherwise is bland and dead. Salt, in our climate, keeps neighbors and friends from falling and breaking their necks. That’s who you are.

Light is gift. Light reveals truth and exposes deceit. Light brings understanding and warmth in confusion and cold. Light opens up paths for walking and beckons others to join its friendly hope. That’s who you are.

And the kingdom of heaven: that’s where people obey and follow only God and no other. It’s where God reigns in people’s hearts because God’s love has so moved and shaped their hearts that they, in turn, are God’s love.

That’s who you are. Sometimes you forget, and think whenever Jesus says “enter the kingdom of heaven” he means “go to heaven when you die” He never means that. Remember, your life is joined to Christ’s death and resurrection; life with God after you die will not be taken from you. Remember, what Jesus is always saying is, if you aren’t living under God’s rule, shaped by God’s heart, then you aren’t living in the kingdom. Simple truth, but easily confused.

In your baptism God claimed you as righteous and holy, as beloved child. That’s who you are, you who live with God’s heart in yours, you who reveal God’s heart to this world.

You are salt. You are light. You are already in God’s kingdom, and are righteous. So – be who you are.

That’s all Isaiah and Jesus ask. Isaiah doesn’t expect that one person will end oppression, provide clothing for all who are naked, and end world hunger. Jesus doesn’t expect that one disciple will provide light for the whole world. They simply ask, be who you already are.

Be the one who keeps the good from going rotten, who preserves precious things in this world for the sake of life. Be flavor and beauty in the ugliness of the world. You already are this, in Christ. If you can remember that, being who you are is easier. And watch out for those slipping on the ice.

Be the light of God’s hope in your place, where you are. Reveal truth; name deceit. Don’t hide that you love other people, that God loves other people, because you fear exposing yourself in a world of hate. You already are the light of Christ. So get up on your soapbox or stool or whatever you have, and shine light so others can see. If you can remember you already are light, it’s easier to do this.

And be the warmth of God’s love in the world, for you are God’s righteousness already.

God has said so; will you disagree? You already live in God’s rule and reign, in the kingdom of heaven; but sometimes you wonder if you are righteous enough.

But remember we sang with the psalmist that the righteous are “merciful and full of compassion.” That’s righteousness. Mercy and compassion. Remember that when Jesus, who said every letter of the law must be fulfilled, was pressed as to what was the heart of God’s law, he said the whole law of God was fulfilled by “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourselves.” To be God’s righteousness is to be God’s heart in the world and for the world. It is to be God’s mercy and compassion for the hungry, the afflicted, the oppressed.

That’s the righteousness that exceeds that of the best law-keepers, scribes, Pharisees, whomever. Keeping God’s law isn’t following rules and punishing those who fail. The Son of God, who reveals the heart of the Father to us, who died and rose as the truest witness of the eternal love of the Triune God, the Son of God has told us: Keeping God’s law is knowing and loving the heart of the Lawgiver, and bearing that heart into the world the Lawgiver so loves.

You are salt. You are light. You are God’s heart.

God has given you to a world longing for God’s healing. Don’t be afraid, for God is with you. Don’t despair that you are not enough, because God has said you are.

You are salt. You are light. You are God’s heart. And hear Isaiah for what that means today: God “will guide you continually,” says the prophet, “and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

That’s your truth as you enter a world that is frightening and disturbing, as you live in a desert and feel incapable of doing anything: you are a watered garden, a repairer, a restorer, and God will guide you, satisfy your needs, and make your bones strong. All shall be well, and all all manner of things shall be well. For God has promised.

So go, be who you are, so God’s salt and light and heart can bring hope and life as God always intended.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We’re halfway through winter, literally and figuratively, and there’s light to be shined, work to be done, with the grace and help of the One we follow, tested as we are so Christ can help us in our testing.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Presentation of Our Lord
   Texts: Luke 2:22-40; Hebrews 2:14-18

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

We’re halfway through winter. That’s important to remember.

Yes, this is the Feast of the Presentation, forty days after Christmas. Jewish mothers underwent purification rites forty days after giving birth; first born sons were presented in the Temple then, too.

But in Ireland and Britain February 2 held further significance as a cross-quarter day. Christmas Day, the Annunciation (March 25), St. John the Baptist/Midsummer Day (June 24), and St. Michael’s Day (September 29), marked the quarters of the year, falling very close to the solar turning points, the solstices and equinoxes. But Gaelic culture also marked the half-way points between these quarters. Presentation is the cross-quarter day between Christmas and Annunciation, and is about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

Today our forebears started to ask how long winter would be. They had celebrated the coming of light at Christmas, but the sun still rose late and set early, and it was still cold. How long before spring? they’d ask.

The movement of the earth around the sun gives holy reminders of our life in God’s care, reminders our ancestors lived and breathed deeply. We’ve reduced today to a silly ritual with a groundhog, a joke. But there’s nothing funny about the question of how long winter will last. For those wise ones, it wasn’t just a question of weather. The yearly journey through dark and cold taught them about the same journey our lives are making.

Winter is more than weather for us, too. And in a world where cold and fear are growing, what might it mean that tonight we note that we’re only halfway through?

As we hear of Simeon and Anna, it means we’re not in their enviable position.

These ancient saints diligently served and waited, worshipped and prayed, and at the ends of their lives were blessed to witness the coming of God-with-us, Christ in the flesh. Simeon’s beautiful song anticipates departure and rest, because God’s light has come.

But we’re not at the end. We’re still in the middle of winter. The coming of God’s light in Christ isn’t the signal for us to lay down and rest; the task is still before us.

We celebrate the coming of God’s light but we see how dark it still is.

We rejoice in the warmth of God’s love we know in Christ Jesus but we feel how cold the world still is.

We delight in Christ’s resurrection and the promise of eternal life, but we’re painfully aware of the pervasiveness of death.

In every way that matters, we’re in the middle of winter and are longing for God’s spring.

But that’s why we’re here. 

Not to answer, “How long?” Simply because it was a sunny day today doesn’t mean we have any idea when spring will return. Likewise, no answer awaits us as to when God’s full healing and restoring of creation will come to pass.

But our ancestors knew that, even if they engaged in weather prediction on this day. The festival of Presentation was tied to symbols of light, to the blessing of candles, as ours were tonight. Because Simeon sang of God’s light revealed. But also that they might remind each other of the signs of the light they had, the candles who bring light and warmth to the dark and cold.

And in the very long winter this world now faces, we gather tonight to remember the light we celebrated forty days ago on the darkest of nights. We gather to see fire and eat bread and smell beeswax and taste wine and sing songs and hear God’s words that sustain us in the winter, until the spring comes.

And now the Hebrews reading makes sense to this day.

On first glance, it seems unrelated to the Presentation. But if we’re in the middle of winter, and there is work for us yet in the world’s cold and fear, it is exceedingly good news to know we leave here not just with memory of tonight’s light and warmth.

We leave here with the grace and presence of Christ who has already lived through winter, who is the embodiment of God’s spring. Christ can help us as we are tested by the cold and fear, because Christ was also so tested. We go out into the middle of winter with Christ our Lord who knows how to hold hope and light in the deepest cold and ice and hatred and fear. Who is our strength, our courage, our encouragement. Who is always with us, no matter how long winter lasts.

So we sing with Simeon but with different meaning.

We sing, not at the end, but in the middle of things. When we sing, “now let your servant depart in peace,” it is our invitation to Christ to go with us as we depart into the wintry world that desperately needs God’s light and warmth.

When we sing, “a light to reveal you to the nations,” we ask for Christ’s light and fuel to keep that light burning in our hearts. Not just so others may see. But also that we don’t despair at the depth of the winter.

We sing, “your Word has been fulfilled,” not as the end of all things, but as confident hope that in us God’s Word is living into the world bringing light and healing.

We’re still in the middle of this thing. But as we join Simeon and Anna in song, we know that we’re not in the middle alone. We go with Christ: our Light, our Spring, our Warmth. And nothing can stop this grace from reaching this world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Found by God in Christ and loved, our joy is to find others and share this with them, bring them to Jesus so they, too, might know this love and grace.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Second Sunday after Epiphany, year A
   Texts: John 1:29-42; Isaiah 49:1-7

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

What would it take for you to share your faith with someone else?

What might convince you to take that risk?

Andrew and John, disciples of John the Baptist, start to follow Jesus in the Gospel today. But almost immediately Andrew finds his big brother Simon, and eagerly tells him, “We have found the Messiah!” Simon Peter doesn’t become Simon Peter without being brought to Jesus by his brother.

Mary and I were blessed to be at dinner with friends last week who shared about their faith practices, which were different from ours, and the joy and life they bring them. It was a blessing and a privilege. But what might Andrew the fisherman think about our culture where more often than not we’re reluctant to open up about what we believe, about what gives us life and joy?

Andrew’s joy in finding God’s anointed one couldn’t be kept inside; he had to share it. What would be like for us to have such uncontainable joy?

In Isaiah, God dreams that God’s light and healing would reach the end of the earth.

In a beautiful turn, God says, “It is too light a thing” for the Messiah just to restore Israel. All nations need God’s light. We see this in Christ, who came for the whole world, not just his people.

But these words are also given us in our anointing. Made God’s Christ in baptism, we are sent with the same mission Christ began. And if God has anything to say to us it might be, “It’s too light a thing that you might know my healing salvation just for yourselves, or for your congregation. I give you as a light to the nations.”

There is a joyful sharing of faith in this place. We live our hope together here. We meet the Triune God in Word and Sacrament, in song and prayer. We serve Christ together in this place, in our neighborhood, and in each other’s name wherever we live and move and work. This is a grace for us, and in this community the Spirit gives us life.

Andrew and John must have loved being together in Jesus’ presence, listening to him, talking to him. They’d followed the Baptizer hoping for God’s coming, and now in Jesus they knew that coming. But Andrew, at some point early on, left Jesus’ presence for a bit to find his brother. The author of First John says that his joy can only be complete when he shares the Good News.

What if our joy will not be complete if we keep what we know and find in this place to ourselves? If we never reach out to someone we know and say, “We have found God’s hope and life”?

This is the pattern we see in John’s Gospel repeatedly.

Jesus finds people, who go out and bring friends or relatives or neighbors to Jesus. John the Baptist points out the Lamb of God to his own disciples, who follow Jesus. Andrew brings Simon Peter. After this story, Jesus finds Philip, who finds his friend Nathanael. The Samaritan woman at the well meets Jesus and then gets her neighbors and brings them to see. Andrew and Philip bring Greek seekers to meet Christ for themselves.

This is how God’s light gets to the ends of the earth. When those who rejoice in the light, who are blessed to see by it, who find hope in the darkness and fear of this world in God’s love, say to another, “I’ve found something. Come with me and see.”

In John’s Gospel those who bring others don’t try to convince them of anything. They simply tell what they’ve found, and say, “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

How different that feels from what passes for evangelism in the churches today.

We’re in a time of deep confusion about evangelism across the Church.

The focus of so many articles and books and workshops is either fear or marketing. Mainline churches are frightened about their numbers dropping. There’s a pretty constant stream of gloom and doom writing about how the church isn’t going to survive.

The answer from many is marketing. Sell your congregation, your programs, your facilities. Make a splash in a busy world where people’s attention is divided and glossy, professional entertainment is the norm. Are you doing the right things in worship? Are you finding ways to attract the kinds of people you need?

Isn’t it striking how different that is from Andrew? He found the joy and hope of God’s coming, and needed to share that personally with his brother. The Samaritan woman met the Messiah and couldn’t wait to tell her neighbors.

Evangelism is never about building churches, or adding members. It’s never about worrying about survival, as if that’s Christ’s goal for us. Jesus never said that the ELCA needed to grow, or that Mount Olive should have a certain number of people. He simply came as the love of God in the flesh, invited people to follow, and those people started inviting other people to come and see Jesus themselves. And God’s light spread around the world.

It’s telling that John uses the word “found” a lot.

Andrew and John find Jesus. Andrew finds Simon. Jesus finds Philip. Philip finds Nathanael. Telling the Good News about what God is doing begins with first finding that Good News for oneself. Once we’ve found it, we find others we know and love and share it with them.

It’s how it often happens here. People tell others they know and love what they’ve found, about meeting God here, about the life and worship and service we do together, and invite them to come with them and see. Not to build up our numbers. But because the joy of being filled with God’s grace and knowing a community of faith in which you’ve met the Spirit of God is too explosive to keep inside.

None of us need to care about how many people belong to any denominations or any congregations. That’s never the point. Up or down, it’s not ours to worry about. The only question before us is, have we found God’s love and light for the world? If so, what will it take for us to tell someone who doesn’t know it what we’ve found?

It’s too light a thing, it’s too small, God says, to keep the joy of God’s love for the world for ourselves.

And if our forebears in faith have anything to say, it’s that our joy is incomplete if it’s kept to ourselves. It’s completed when it’s shared. When we set aside our fears, our reluctance, and share what we have found in Christ with someone else. Then we start finding real joy.

When we break our cultural rules that say keep faith private, and instead gently, lovingly, open up to another about what we’ve found in God. Then we start finding real joy.

This isn’t about being intrusive, or knocking on doors, or pushing our beliefs on others. It’s not about convincing others, or being right. It’s about being ready to share with those we likely already know and love what we have found in God, what brings life and joy to us and to the world.

So that God’s light of healing might reach the ends of the earth. And our joy might be complete.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Pay attention to what is happening in these baptisms today: in these words and actions we find ourselves, our call, and our life in Christ for the sake of the world.

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

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

You might want to pay close attention to what’s happening with Jesus at his baptism, and what Isaiah says about it.

Since Pentecost, the Church has claimed we share the same call and promise and purpose as Jesus. We should watch Jesus closely, then, because what’s happening affects us.

But if you’re paying attention to Jesus, it might be easier to pay really close attention to what’s happening to Julia and Margaret this morning. To what we pray for them. To what we claim for them. We always see the water, the washing in God’s name. But as it was with Jesus, there is so much more to see, so much happening through that water and that washing that changes us.

From the beginning of this liturgy, when we blessed the waters of baptism and gave thanks for God’s gift, until the end when we are sent in peace to serve God, this day centers us so we find ourselves, we find our call, we find the life in Christ we are meant to be for the world.

If we do pay attention to this, what is happening and being said is stunning.

I have given you as a covenant to the people, God says.

Jesus claims this for himself as he begins his ministry. And we know it’s true: Jesus is the physical sign of God’s promise of eternal love and grace, God’s promise to the world in the flesh.

But here God says it’s true of us as well. Look at what we say about these girls. Their parents will promise to raise them in the faith so that they may proclaim Christ through their words and their deeds, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace. We will welcome them into a mission we say we all share, to bear God’s creative and redeeming Word to all the world.
We bear God’s promise, God’s redeeming Word, to the world.

How have we forgotten this? We are God’s covenant, God’s enfleshed promise to the world. In us God’s Word is borne into a world of pain and sorrow, and we are, each one of us, tangible signs that God has not abandoned this world.

I have given you to the world for this, God says in our baptism. Are you paying attention?

I have given you as a light to the nations, God says.

Jesus claims this for himself, too. “I am the light of the world,” he says in John. (ch. 8) “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.” And we know it’s true: Christ brings light into our hearts and minds, and through the Spirit helps us see even in the deep darkness of this world.

But Christ says it’s true of us, too. As we heard Friday on Epiphany, Jesus said the same thing about us: “You are the light of the world.” (Matt. 5)

And look at what we say to these girls. They will each receive a candle, and Jesus’ next words after “you are the light of the world” will be said to them: “Let your light so shine before others so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

We are God’s light, shining in the darkness, so others can see and know God.

How have we forgotten this? We are God’s light in a world filled with darkness and fear and hatred. Each of us already is light, we don’t have to create it. And when people see us, when we shine, even in our own little, timid, or as Isaiah puts it, “dimly burning” ways, they find hope and light and God. Let your light so shine, Jesus says.

I have given you to the world for this, God says in our baptism. Are you paying attention?

The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus at his baptism and he is named the beloved Son of God.

And we know it’s true: Christ Jesus is God-with-us, the Son of God who shows us the heart of God’s love for us and for the world. In Christ’s ministry, death, and resurrection, we know God’s love in ways we never could before.

But the Apostle Paul says it’s true of us, too. He tells us and the Galatians (ch. 3) that in the waters of baptism we have been clothed in Christ and in Christ Jesus we are all children of God.

And look at what we ask for these girls. After they are washed, hands will be laid on their heads, and we will pray for the Holy Spirit to come on them, using the same words the prophet declares about the Messiah: we will pray for the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the Spirit of joy in God’s presence, to come upon them.

We are given the Spirit’s wisdom, understanding, joy, counsel, so many gifts in our baptism, that we might, like Christ, bring God’s grace to the world.

How have we forgotten this? Time and again we’ve heard this, at every baptism, at every confirmation, at the Easter Vigil, at Pentecost. We are God’s Spirit-filled, beloved children, in whom God is well pleased. In that Spirit, like Christ Jesus, we are sent from our baptism into our mission in the world.

I have given you to the world for this, God says in our baptism. Are you paying attention?

What does this mean for us? It means we already are what God needs for the life of this world.

Pay attention to all that we are saying and doing when we baptize, to all that is said about and done to Jesus at his baptism and after, because that is our truth, too. These stunning truths belong to us in God’s grace, and God needs us for the life of the world as it sits in darkness and fear.

What will it look like for us to be God’s covenant in the world, tangible signs of God’s promise?

What will it look like for us to be God’s light in the world, shining into the darkness?

What will it look like for us to be filled with the Spirit and called beloved children, and sent with God’s power and life into the world?

That’s why we’re paying attention today. So we can begin to pray and discern together what God means this to look like in our lives.

I have given you as a covenant, as a light, as my Spirit-filled beloved children to the people of the world.

This is God’s baptismal promise to us, as much as it was to Jesus, as much as it is to Margaret and Julia today.

So let’s live that way. Be who we are. Trust who God says we are. In us people will know God’s promise in the flesh. In us people will see God’s light in the darkness. In us people will be touched by the work of the Spirit.

We’ve heard this for a long time. We might just have forgotten to notice these important things that have happened to us.

Now we see.

Now, with the grace of God, we go as God’s blessing into the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen