Baptized Beloved

Baptism is about identity, and up to this point in Matthew’s account of the gospel, and in our gospel reading today, we are hearing who this Jesus of Nazareth is. A child born outside, Emmanuel – God with us, Savior and Lord, a king and messiah visited by foreigners, a threat to Herod who had to flee to Egypt to find asylum, who was brought out of Egypt and given new life just as the Israelites were, the cousin of John the Baptist, and in this text today – beloved child of God.

Baptismal identity is our core identity

The inflowing and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The presence of God heard, felt, seen. 

The ordinary becoming sacred. The normal things filled with the most extraordinary and holy things.

Baptism tells us Who and Whose we are

• This is the story of scripture, this is God’s story, this is the story that we are adopted into when we are water-washed and spirit-born.
• When all the chips fall down, when everything else falls away, when we go through transitions from being defined as parent, child, student, accountant, teacher, grandparent, spouse, single, democrat, republican, soccer player, hunter, fisher, citizen, american, etc.
  • What we are underneath it all, primary to it all, the thing that cannot be stamped out, the seal upon us that nothing can undo

And baptism leads us to ask, What God is up to and what God wants us to be and to do in response

This year at Spirit in the Hills

• Recentering ourselves in our identity as church
  • Hearing and discerning how we are called to live out this identity this year in this place under these circumstances
  • In the coming months we’ll be having some conversations in groups large and small about our core values, vision, and mission
• Spirit inspire and move us
  • We’re in a period of transition, maybe we feel more like we’re in the wilderness post-baptism rather than here at the point of baptism. 
  • What carries us through the wilderness – our identity as beloved baptized children of the almighty
  • And that same God is a God who chooses to dwell us 
• Sharing love – the proclamation of belovedness
  • That we are called to love and follow the one whom God declares beloved
  • That this one, Jesus, will call us light and salt, and will name us beloved, too
  • This is what we share with others – assured and centered in our belovedness, we show and tell others just how beloved they are
    • The ones who are already sure they are beloved
    • The ones who think there is no way they could every be loved

These waters of baptism are where our life begins, and where we are refreshed and refilled. This is where it all starts.

Baptism is about our identity, about belonging to God to God’s Church having a place and a voice, and baptism is about mission – these waters transform us to live among God’s faithful people, to share in the Lord’s Supper, to hear the Word of God, to share the good news of GOd in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.

This day, this month, this year we will be centered and re-centered in Christ through these waters and the same presence of God’s Holy Spirit will inspire us and fill us with breath and energy, setting our hearts on fire to share God’s love in a world where love can seem so hard to come by and where so many of us quickly forget that we are God’s beloved children.