God's Mercy Remembered!

                                                                                                           Baptism of the Lord Sunday!

 

                                                                         Prayer

                                                                    Isaiah 63:7-9

1^st Movement:

 

We have just finished up the Christmas Season of the Christian Church year.  The Christmas season, recalls the birth of Christ through the Wisemen coming a few years later.  Today is Baptism of the Lord Sunday.  Baptism of the Lord jumps ahead and recalls Christ’s baptism and the start of His ministry.  It is also a time of remembering our baptism, remembering what it means, reflecting on our journey with God thus far, and recommitting our lives to draw closer!  We are also at a place in our secular calendar where we are starting a new year.  With that, we look back to the past year and reflect on what has happened.  Our text from 3^rd Isaiah fits into that mind set today.

 

2^nd Movement:

Our text today falls in a part of the book of Isaiah that Bible scholars call 3^rd Isaiah (Isaiah 56-66).  2^nd Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) had been full of hope and promise while the people were in Exile.  One such passage is, AI will turn the darkness before them into light.@ (Isa. 42:16b) In 3^rd Isaiah, some have returned to their homeland, but they haven=t found fulfilled all of the promises of 2^nd Isaiah.  In regard to the darkness/light passage found in 2^nd Isaiah, in 3^rd Isaiah the people lament, AWe wait for light, and lo! There is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.@ (Isa. 59:9b)   So there is a state of disappointment in 3^rd Isaiah, a sense of prophecy unfulfilled.  The purpose of prophecy is always to bring the people to repentance and such is the case here.  The prophet is trying to bring them to a place of not blaming God but realizing their own needs for repentance, so the prophet starts this section of scripture with our text for today.  The prophet says, AI will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for us, and the great favor to the house of Israel that he has shown them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.@  Isaiah says remember all that the Lord has done for us, remember all the praiseworthy acts, remember the great favor God has shown us, remember God=s mercy, and mostly, remember the abundance of God=s steadfast love!  Isaiah quotes God as saying, ASurely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely,@ but the people know they have failed God: they have dealt falsely!  Still, God became their Asavior in all their distress.@  Then the real clincher for this passage is that it wasn=t a messenger or an angel that did all of this, but it was God=s presence with them that did all of this!  God was faithful!  God hadn=t let them down!

 

3^rd Movement:

What about us?  As we remember God=s mercy, what do we recall?  God has helped some of us through times of loss.  God has helped some of us through sickness or is helping us in times of sickness.  God has helped some of us experience Spiritual growth.  God has helped others of us through times of depression or sadness.  God has helped some of us start new directions in our lives, maybe to college or to a new job.  God has provided for necessities!  God has given us shelter!  God has provided our needs!  God has provided our church with growth: baptisms, professions of faith, and membership!  God has provided new people to do some of the ministries in the church!  God has sent Christ: God has come to be with us!  AFor he shall be called Emmanuel, which means, >God with us.=@  God has claimed us in our baptisms!  God has been with us throughout our lives!  God has been faithful!  God=s steadfast love has endured throughout our lives, including the past year!  What about us?  Have we expressed our thanks for God=s provisions this year and throughout our lives: for God=s steadfast love?  Have we always been found faithful?  What will we do about it today? What will we do about it this next year?  Where will we go from here?  Are we dissatisfied with what God is doing in our lives?  Then, there is no need to look any further, the problem is not with God.  God is faithful!  Isaiah writes to bring the people to repentance.  Do you need to repent this morning?

As we encounter Christ at the table, maybe you want to repent and come to Christ for the first time; you can do that as you come this morning.  If you do make that first time commitment, let me know so I can help you with your walk with Christ, and if you have never been baptized, we can talk about your baptism.  For all of us, maybe, as you have reflected, you have found some things you need to put behind or repent of and start out anew in this new year?  You can do that as you encounter Christ at the table! 

After communion, we will have a Congregational reaffirmation of baptism.  This is not a baptism.  For us who have been baptized, it is a remembering of God’s faithfulness throughout our lives.  It is remembering we are claimed by God!  It is a reminder of our vows to God and the church and a renewal of those vows as we begin a new year!  It is a chance to say thanks to God who has always been faithful, so, as we have a Congregational reaffirmation of Baptism on this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, I invite you to pray a prayer of thanks and rededication.  I can=t think of a better way to start out the new year!

Prayer of Confession

Service of Communion

                                             Congregational Reaffirmation of Baptism

Who is This Baby?

 Epiphany Sunday!

 

                            Prayer

                      Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

 

1st Movement

 

When I graduated from High School in 1977, I hadn't even seen a Personal Computer.  In the sixties, we had experienced the Apollo Space flights and we had seen the big room-size computers on T.V., and we were taught that this was going to be a coming thing.  Everything was going to go to computers because it made everything so easy.  I think Personal Computers had been made, but they were so expensive that the common person or a small business couldn't afford to own one.  For the most part, everything was still done by hand, by typewriter, or by files in filing cabinets. Yes, I guess I am that old!  When I started to college in 1992, one of the first classes they enrolled me in was Computing Essentials.  When I sat down behind my first computer among others who had considerable more exposure to computers than I had, I was somewhat terrified.  I do not know what I thought the computer was going to do to me, but I know my heart was beating very rapidly.  The class went well and I learned to use WordPerfect 5.1 on a Dos IBM PC.  When I say it went well, that does not mean it was always easy.  I can remember having a lot of confusion about whether I was in a program or not!  You would exit from WordPerfect.  You would exit from the print screen.  You would exit from the menu that they had set up on the computer.  The teacher would tell us to exit out to DOS, and I didn't know when I was there.  It was all quite confusing to this seventies kid who had never seen a computer. 

I can remember two things that really opened my eyes to what was going on.  First, a parishioner I had at the time gave me a 286 PC that had WordPerfect 5.1 on it.  I got a bunch of shareware from the College library and my brother-in-law showed me how to set up a Menu and install these programs.  As I worked in DOS and did this my eyes were opened.  The other time was when I took a programming language called Turbo Pascal.  I learned that files with the extension .exe were executable files and were going to do something.  These were the programs!  My eyes were opened!  An Ah Hah moment!  These were Epiphanies.  That is what an Epiphany is:  an Ah Hah moment.

 

2nd movement

In our scripture today, we have an Epiphany: an Ah Hah moment.  Jesus had been born the cute little baby in Bethlehem.  He had been raised like any other little boy.  He had helped his dad in the carpenter shop.  He had played in the streets with the other kids.  He had grown up in the shadow of being an illegitimate child; after all, only his parents really knew otherwise.  Today, he comes to John to be baptized.  After his baptism, a dove descends from Heaven and a voice from Heaven declares, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."  Ah Hah!  He isn't an illegitimate child but a son of the creator God:  the God of the universe, the God of the Hebrew people!  And this is to be a new beginning to be associated with the time that the Dove came back to Noah with the Olive twig.  The Noah story is about a new beginning!  It is about resetting the world with a new start!  This would be a new beginning!  Jesus as the God-man: the Savior of the world!

It is appropriate that as we conclude the Christmas season and we look at the Epiphanies of who this baby is, we realize as the Wisemen (who by the way were gentile (outsiders)) came to the realization that this baby was a King and brought gifts fitting for a king. We realize today the Epiphany that this child who grew up as any other child was indeed God’s son.  We realize the Epiphany that this Jesus brings a new beginning after we have messed the first one up!  It is also appropriate as we begin a new year that we think of this new beginning in Christ and give the year and ourselves to God!

3rd movement

Now we can understand!  As we take Communion together today, remember who Jesus is.  He isn't just the cute baby of Christmas, but he is the Son of God.  He is our Savior.  He is God in the flesh.  He is the one in whom we can place our Hope!

As we have an anointing of hands, pledge to let God use you this new year! Thanks be to God!

 

Prayer of Confession

Service of Communion and Anointing of Hands