God Promises to Be With Us
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
For January 12, 2025:
God Promises to Be With Us
by Tom Willadsen
Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
As the new year begins, what are we anticipating? What coming event, hoped for, imagined, or scheduled, has us on tiptoes? When John led his movement of repentance, all the people were filled with excited anticipation.
When the good news reached Samaria, the whole idea was just absurd. Who saw that coming? (Okay, Jesus did in Acts 1, but we weren’t paying attention.)
When God’s people were devastated and broken in exile, the Lord promised to be with them, to redeem them, to bring them back home. The Lord said, “I love you.”
In the Scriptures
Psalm 29 — The Voice of the Lord
This psalm is a hymn of praise to the power of the Lord. “The Voice of the Lord” is repeated four times, reinforcing the awesome power of God. The first reference has the voice over the waters, which recalls the moment when the Lord began creating the universe. Thunder is probably the closest thing we know to the experience described by the psalm. In the region of Israel, thunderstorms off the Mediterranean were not only awe-inspiring, but they were also life-giving, bringing necessary moisture to an arid environment.
Isaiah 43:1-7 — Fear Banished
Twice this passage tells the reader not to be afraid. It is a reassuring passage. It is very powerful to hear God speaking the words, “I love you.” I’m pretty sure this is the only place in scripture where the Lord utters those words. I once asked a congregation to add their own names as the text was read: “I have called you, insert your name, you are mine.” The passage banishes fear but raises the question: Why were they afraid in the first place?
Well, first of all, the prophet gave this word to the people when they were in exile in Babylon. Their holy city had been plundered, some of them were in prison in a distant, foreign land. Yet the people should fear God, not the Babylonians. God had, in effect, waged war on them because of their unfaithfulness, neglecting the most vulnerable in society. The Babylonians were merely the Lord’s instruments. This word comes to the people who are desolate, broken, and in despair. While they have every reason to fear God, God tells them not to. It says that God will act to bring them back home, redeem / ransom those who are held captive, and promises to be with them.
What does this passage say to prosperous, modern, 21st-century American Protestants? Whom should we fear? What does redemption look like for us?
Acts 8:14-17 — Context is Key
One could read this passage as a kind of “completion” of the baptism of the Samaritans, as if Peter and John needed to come from Jerusalem to seal the sealing. The context is, however, quite important. Philip, a Greek-speaking Jew, had gone to Samaria and preached the good news of Jesus Christ. The Samaritans received the news joyfully. The Samaritans were bitter enemies of the Jews and had been for centuries. Yet, way back in Acts 1:8, just before Jesus ascended into heaven, he mentions Samaria among the places the disciples will be his witnesses, after they have received the power of the Holy Spirit. Philip was doing exactly what Jesus told the disciples to do. It was shocking then, and it was shocking seven chapters later.
Only Luke, among the gospels, includes the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan women at the well appears in John’s gospel. That story demonstrates the animosity between Jews and Samaritans. Peter and John traveled about 40 miles to Samaria because the news of Philip’s ministry was extraordinary. Perhaps the Holy Spirit led Peter and John to Samaria so they could see for themselves that the Samaritans had accepted the gospel.
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 — The Baptizer
We heard some of this reading during Advent, when John was preparing the way for the Lord. We don’t get the brood of vipers this week, but we do get that John understood his role as one pointing to the coming Messiah. There was a sort of messianic movement around John the Baptizer, but here he denies messiah status. At church camp, I sang a song that went “He must increase, we must decrease, his banner over me is love,” which comes straight from John 3:30. They drilled humility into Presbyterians at a young age.
The baptism itself is sort of anticlimactic; it certainly lacks the special effects of Mark’s account of the baptism, where the sky is “cloven in twain” or “rent asunder,” as some older translations record it. In Luke’s telling of Jesus’ baptism, he was simply praying after all the people had been baptized when the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove. It is not clear whether the voice from heaven was heard by the crowds who had been baptized or only heard by Jesus.
In the News
The new NCAA football championship model has nearly reached completion. By January 12, we’ll know which two teams are vying for the title. At this writing it’s possible that it will be a showdown between two Big Ten teams. Georgia, at number 2, is the highest-seeded team still in contention.
The congregation I serve has been scrambling to welcome refugee families to the community. With the change of presidential administrations, it is feared that the flow of refugees will slow or even stop as it did early in President Trump’s first administration.
In the Sermon
The 2024 election was certified six days ago. Some marked the fourth anniversary of the insurrection with horror, others marked this year’s acceptance of the election results as vindication. As a nation, we are less than a week away from an inauguration that is different from any in American history.
It’s early in the calendar year. There are probably some people in the pews who have managed to keep their New Year’s resolutions until now! There are probably a few more who are waiting for Ash Wednesday, a kind of mulligan for failed resolutions.
But what are we waiting for? What are we awaiting with eager excitement? Today’s texts point to a future that is in God’s hands and better than we can imagine. Can we dream? Do we dare to dream?
God promises to be with us. God says, “I love you.” God sent Jesus to lead us. What now?
SECOND THOUGHTS
A Baptism Made Complete
by Chris Keating
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Some people will remember President Jimmy Carter as a dedicated humanitarian, a man who built houses for the poor and worked tirelessly to eradicate the world of guinea worm disease. Others may recall the ways inflation grew out of control when he was president, or his faithful but failed attempts to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis.
For many others, he was a plain-spoken Sunday School teacher, a peanut farmer, and one-term Governor of Georgia who became president by promising “I’ll never lie to you.” Across his century-long life, he also became the author of more than 30 books and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
President Carter, who died December 29, 2024, and who was laid to rest last week, wove a complex legacy as a politician and human rights advocate. He set a new standard for former presidents and will likely be known for having the most consequential post-presidency in modern history. All of those achievements and accomplishments are notable and enduring, but it is arguable that none were more important than his lifelong faith. In the words of a prayer commonly used during funerals, we celebrate today that Jimmy Carter’s baptism has now been made complete.
Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism signaled his willingness to submit to God’s reign by turning from the ways of the world. Christians recall Jesus’ submersion into the muddy, murky waters of human sin as well as his rising to new life. In our own baptism, as Paul reminds us, we recall that as Christ was raised to new life, “we might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)
In his well-researched book on the theology and practice of Christian funerals, Thomas Long makes clear the connection between baptism and death. He reminds us that Christians see baptism as the beginning of a long journey through life, a “journey along a road that Jesus himself traveled. Christians travel this road in faith, not knowing fully where it will lead and sometimes only seeing one step ahead. But they keep putting one foot in front of the other, traveling in faith to the end.” (Long, Accompany Them With Singing, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).
While “Baptized Christian” might not have ever appeared on Jimmy Carter’s business card, it is clear that his life was shaped by the contours of this baptismal journey. He openly claimed the title of “Born again” Christian when he ran for office, something no other candidate had ever done. Many saw that as a liability, though initially, it seemed southerners embraced his view. Yet during his reelection campaign, the tides shifted as more persons equated the term evangelical with conservative politics.
Carter, however, did not ever see “born again” as a marketing ploy to attract votes. While he became what some called “the wrong type of evangelical for the evangelicals of the Christian right,” Carter upheld a vision of faith rooted in John’s baptismal proclamations and Jesus’ announcement of the Gospel: good news to the poor, release to the captives, and freedom to the oppressed.
Later in his life, Carter’s faith convictions led him to reject the Southern Baptist Church when it refused to ordain women. Faith guided his denouncing of racism and his pursuit of peace.
“I’ve had a varied life and a dramatic one,” Carter wrote in his 1996 book Living Faith. “I have moved from a naval career to farming, then to a political life, and, since the end of my presidency, to a challenging and delightful life as a college professor, a volunteer activist, and a grandfather.” He wrote that faith provided his life with stability but then corrected himself. “Come to think about it, stability is not exactly the right word, because to have faith in something is an inducement not to dormancy but to action. To me, faith is not just a noun but also a verb.”
Those who followed Carter knew the truth of that statement. Faith was an active verb for him, sending him across the globe to monitor elections and improve the health of millions. When his loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980 sent him into a time of perplexing doubt and depression, Carter spent some time discerning the next faithful step he and his wife should take. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale University, who worked with Carter for many years, recounted a story of how that deeply personal loss led Carter to a renewed sense of mission.
Sonnenfeld tells the story of watching Carter address a room full of CEOs in Atlanta, Georgia. The former president asked the executives if any of them had ever been fired. “Perhaps a quarter of the folks in the room raised their hands,” Sonnenfeld recalls. Among them was Bernie Marcus, a former executive of Home Depot who had been intensely critical of the former president. The executive shared how infuriated he had been by that injustice and how it had also fueled a sense of mission in his life. “Carter replied, with tears welling up, ‘Bernie, that is how I felt, except I wasn’t fired by a board manipulated by an activist; I was fired by the American people—in the spotlight and left with no purpose and my dream shattered and no financier to back me. But I am dedicated to waging peace.’”
A former president, yes, and a humanitarian, a Nobel laureate, painter, author, and more. But primarily a dedicated Christian whose life bore witness to the promises made at his baptism.
Carter, of course, was no saint. He was as human as any of us and had a public record that can be debated in any number of ways. Yet the singularity of his commitment to faith has few parallels among U.S. Presidents.
I experienced this once on a cold, rainy night in 1996, years after Carter had left the White House. That evening, several thousand people lined up outside the church where I served as an associate pastor. Across the street, a few protestors from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS, stood in the mud, trying unsuccessfully to draw attention to themselves. As the crowd kept growing, I opened the door and welcomed President Carter into our church. He moved quickly into our offices, shaking a few hands and chatting with staff before passing the dinner we had ordered for him so he could get to work by signing books.
A few weeks earlier, a bookstore in town called me wondering if our church might like to host a book signing of Carter’s book, Living Faith. Before I realized that I probably should clear this with others, I excitedly replied, “Sure.” I was then left with the task of convincing the senior pastor, church board, and hundreds of members of a strongly Republican Presbyterian church that this was a great idea. Fortunately, most were enthusiastic. After all, few churches will ever say no to an event that results in thousands of people waiting in line to get through its doors.
Carter was pleasant but focused. He did not want anyone to remain in the cold for long, so he got to work quickly and quietly autographing all 3,400 books. He was especially concerned that any volunteers from Habitat for Humanity receive extra recognition. “It’s like this everywhere he goes,” one of the Secret Service agents told me, confiding that some former presidents would express resentment at the attention Carter received. Yet for Carter, it was just another step in his long baptismal journey of service and faith.
And along the way of that journey, like countless people of faith, Carter was led by that powerful voice of the Lord that thunders and roars. Today, his baptism complete, we can lean forward to hear God’s own benedictory epitaph: “This is my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 — John the Baptizer speaks of the coming of the Messiah
“As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah…” So profound were their messianic expectations that the people nearly identified the wrong man as the Messiah. For us, the question might very well be, what do we expect from the Messiah?
The Danger of Expectations
Expectations can have a deleterious effect on your trip to Mexico. If you are a typical American, you will look at the faucets in your bathroom and see “C” and “H” expecting them to stand for “Cold” and “Hot.” But in Mexico, the word for Hot is “Caliente.” And the word for Cold is “Helado.”
* * *
The Benefit of Expectations
In Harvard social psychologist Robert Rosenthal’s classic study, all the children in one San Francisco grade school were given a standard IQ test at the beginning of the school year. The teachers were told the test could predict which students could be expected to have a spurt of academic and intellectual functioning. The researchers then drew random names out of a hat and told the teachers that these were the children who had displayed a high potential for improvement.
The overall result was that those kids, the randomly selected kids, averaged four more IQ points on the second test than the group of students who were not identified. Gains were most dramatic in the lowest grades. First graders whose teachers expected them to advance intellectually jumped 27.4 points, and the second graders who were identified increased on average 16.5 points more than their peers. One little Latin-American child who had been classified as mentally retarded with an IQ of 61 scored 106 after his selection as a late bloomer.
When the teachers expected their students to improve, their attitude and behavior toward the students changed such that the students actually did improve.
* * *
God as Parent
“You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (v.22)
With a single sentence, Luke describes God doing three things that are essential for good and effective parenting:
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22; Acts 8:14-17
What The Holy Spirit Does
The Holy Spirit figures large in both passages. In Luke, the Spirit descends gently, like a dove, upon Jesus, enabling him to hear God’s approving, grace-filled voice. In Acts, Peter and John go to Samaria to pray for the Samaritans who have accepted Jesus as the Messiah but who have, as yet, not received the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Christian tradition holds that four things attach when the Holy Spirit is active in a person’s life. Receiving the Holy Spirit is often described as a deeply personal and transformative experience. Within Christian theology, it’s said to bring several key changes:
* * *
The Importance of Repentance
Luke’s description of John the Baptizer and his message is, perhaps, the most detailed of all the gospel accounts. But rather than spending time describing John’s appearance, Luke concentrates on John’s message.
John is, Luke tells us, preparing the way by which the Messiah will enter the world. And to prepare the way, he is “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” When people ask John what, specifically, they should do to demonstrate their repentance, he gives them specific answers.
The Voice of YHWH
The psalmist opens by telling the worshipers to “ascribe” certain attributes to YHWH.
To “ascribe” means to attribute something to a specific cause, source, or author. It’s often used when you want to say that a particular quality, action, or event is due to a particular person or thing.
Among the qualities the poet ascribes to God are glory and strength. So strong is the Lord that all it takes is God’s voice — a single spoken word to wreak havoc upon the earth. The description he gives might as easily be ascribed to hurricanes and tornadoes: Thunder over bodies of water; breaking off cedar trees; flashing forth flames and fire (lightning?); shaking the wilderness (earthquakes?); causing oaks to whirl and strips the forest bare (forest fires or tornadoes?); and floods.
The psalmist does not say that God causes all these things, but that when we witness these things and the power that they represent, we have something by which we can compare God’s power and strength.
If God’s voice is that powerful, how much more so the power of God’s love?
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:
Isaiah 43:1-7
The Beloved is Unique
Through the prophet Isaiah, God proclaims a wealth of divine love for the nation of Israel, announcing, “you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you.” There’s nothing all that special about this one nation, except God’s love for it.
Sara Hendren says she and her husband had that same experience when they had their first child, who has Down syndrome. She was “just absolutely smitten with and in love with this singular human being.” In contrast, every visit to the doctor was all about “charts and measures and numbers and things, risks, and possibilities.” None of that had anything to do with the immense love they felt for their child and the possibilities they began to create for him to have as beautiful a life as possible.
As a result, his birth, she says, “invited me to rethink human worth entirely and in such a way that introduced me to all kinds of other people who have disabilities of all kinds, how it just lit up my imagination for those artifacts that bridge the body and the world. But most of all, what does it mean to be a gifted and contributing human being? Where does dignity come from, and how do we talk about it, and how do we plan for it? Well, there’s just so much to say about that.”
In a similar way, God is smitten with God’s people, and we live in the glow of that love.
* * *
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Water in the Desert
In the desert country of Palestine, the water images in the gospels remind us of God’s abundance, coming when it’s needed.
Author Sarah Bessey writes about a time when her faith was becoming thin, explaining, “I worried that God was angry at me. I worried that I was going to lose my faith, the thing that I was clinging to with white knuckles by now, like a kid trying to force last year’s favorite shirt to fit after a growth spurt. I had always loved Jesus. Was I losing Jesus? I worried that I would lose my family, my friends, my understanding of the world. I was scared of my anger and my grief, terrified of what I already knew, and begging myself not to know it. Every answer I had memorized had become inadequate. I wrung my soul’s hands.”
Out on a desert hike with her husband, she remembers, “When we fell silent at the picnic table, we realized we were hearing something. Was that…the sound of…water? In the desert? Our eyes met and we stood up, turning toward the sound. We walked to the ridge behind our picnic table and peered down what we had initially thought was just a crevasse: there were trees beneath us; their tops were at our feet. It was a hillside leading to a small, bright creek running at the bottom. We scrambled down the bank and farther into the trees that had been below our line of sight, lower and lower toward the river. We reached the edge of the laughing creek, skidding the last few steps. Unthinkingly, I kicked off my dusty sandals and walked barefoot right into the water. The light came through the trees, and I could see clear to the bottom of the creek. I knelt down, right into the red rock bed, and plunged my hands into the cool water, groaning aloud with pleasure. My swollen feet rejoiced.” (from Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith)
The baptism of Jesus is full God’s abundant care, including the water and God’s message of blessing.
* * *
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
The Betas are Here
If your congregation baptizes a baby this year, this child will be among the first in Generation Beta, or Gen B. This generation will include children born this year through 2039. Morning Brew notes, “These kids, whose parents will mostly hail from Gen Z (born 1995 to 2009) and the youngest millennial (born 1980 to 1994) ranks, represent the second generation born entirely in the 21st century, and many of them may live to see the 22nd.” AI will shape their lives in ways we can’t imagine yet, and “many from this new generation may not even remember the first time a human walks on Mars or ever sit in the driver’s seat of a car that can’t drive itself.”
Mark McCrindle, the demographer who also coined the name Generation Alpha for people born between 2010 and 2024, plans to use Greek letters for future generations, adding a new generation every fifteen years. He predicts that by 2035, Generation Beta will make up 16% of the global population.
* * *
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Precious Water
As John baptizes Jesus, he has abundant water at hand, even in the desert. In our lives, water is becoming scarce. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Potawatomi Nation, writes, “It was previously unthinkable that one would pay for a drink of water; but as careless economic expansion pollutes fresh water, we now incentivize privatization of springs and aquifers. Sweet water, a free gift of the Earth, is pirated by faceless corporations who encase it in plastic containers to sell. And now many can’t afford what was previously free, and we incentivize wrecking public waters to create demand for the privatized. What induces people to buy bottled water from a corporation more convincingly than contaminated water flowing from the faucet? In contrast, in Indigenous societies all over the world, where remnants of gift economies endure, water is sacred and people have a moral responsibility to care for it, to keep it flowing. It is a gift, to be shared by all, and the notion of owning water is an ecological and ethical travesty.” (from The Serviceberry)
Part of the beauty of Jesus’ baptism is the water available to him and to everyone who comes to John.
* * *
Acts 8:14-17
The Holy Spirit’s Power
The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, once pastor at Riverside Church in New York, famously told about the working of the Holy Spirit in his own life.
He preached, “Years ago, when I was still living in North Carolina, someone said to me, “Brother Forbes, do you think the gospel can be preached by someone who is not Pentecostal?” Well, I wasn’t sure, for it was the only preaching I had known, but I imagined that it could happen even if I hadn’t seen or heard it. Indeed, I found out some time later that it was so. After I had moved away from my hometown, someone said to me, “Reverend Forbes, have you ever heard the true gospel from a white preacher?” Well, in theory I knew it had to be true, for God doesn’t withhold the Spirit from anyone. Though I had my doubts that a white preacher could speak with power, I came to a point in my life where I had to say, “Yes, I’ve heard it!” Some time went by, and people began to press upon me the question of the ordination of women. “Could the gospel be preached by a woman even though the holy scriptures bid a woman to keep silence in the church?” I had to ponder this, for it went against what I had known in my own church and there was much resistance from my brother clergy. But I listened to my sisters and before too long I knew the Spirit of God was calling them to preach. Who was I to get in God’s way? Now I thought I had been asked the last question about who might be called to bring me the word of the Lord. But I found out I was wrong. A new question has been posed to me and many of you know what it is. “Can gay men and lesbian women be called to preach the word of God?” Oh, I know what the Bible says, and I know what my own uneasiness says and I can see that same uneasiness in some of your faces. But I’ve been wrong before, and the Spirit has been nudging me to get over my uneasiness. Sometimes we forget Jesus’ promise — that the Spirit will lead us into all truth. Well, that must have meant the disciples didn’t know it all then, and maybe we don’t know it all now.” (James A. Forbes, Jr., Sermon preached on videotape. As quoted in Barbara K. Lundblad, Transforming the Stone.)
* * *
Acts 8:14-17
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
This passage from Acts recounts a turning point for the early churches in Samaria, as their faith deepens. The story tells us that the apostles “went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.”
We can imagine that the early believers hardly knew what they were getting with this gift. Theologian Denis Edwards writes that the Holy Spirit offers us a gift that balances the struggles of the world we live in. He says, “The Spirit of God who graciously accompanies and celebrates the emergence of every form of life delights in the emergence of human creatures who can respond to the divine self-offering love in a personal way. They are offered the gift of transforming grace. A grace-filled universe awaits their arrival. Alongside this story of grace, there is also a tragic story of the willful rejection of grace. Human beings are born into a world of grace but are also drawn toward violence and evil. In the midst of such a world, the Spirit offers freedom and salvation in a way that Christians understand as anticipating, and as directed toward, the Christ event.”
The gift of the Spirit must have further transformed their lives, as it does ours.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Ascribe to God, O heavenly beings, ascribe glory and strength.
All: Ascribe to God glory and worship God in holy splendor.
One: The voice of God is over the waters; the God of glory thunders.
All: The voice of God is powerful and full of majesty.
One: The voice of God flashes forth flames of fire.
All: The voice of God causes all in his temple to say, “Glory!”
OR
One: God comes and calls us God’s own beloved children.
All: That is news that is almost too good to be true.
One: It is God’s proclamation and so you can believe it.
All: With faith in God, we will welcome this good news.
One: God invites us to tell others they are beloved, as well.
All: We will share this wondrous news with others.
Hymns and Songs
Lift High the Cross
UMH: 159
H82: 473
PH: 371
GTG: 826
AAHH: 242
NCH: 198
CH: 108
LBW: 377
ELW: 660
W&P: 287
Renew: 297
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
UMH: 184
PH: 309
GTG: 108
NCH: 118
CH: 104
LBW: 42
ELW: 295
W&P: 181
Renew: 252
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
GTG: 734
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
GTG: 12
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELW: 834
W&P: 48
AMEC: 71
STLT: 273
Renew: 46
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
UMH: 121
H82: 469/470
PH: 298
GTG: 435
NCH: 23
CH: 73
LBW: 290
ELW: 587/588
W&P: 61
AMEC: 78
STLT: 213
O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go
UMH: 480
PH: 384
GTG: 833
NNBH: 210
NCH: 485
CH: 540
LBW: 324
AMEC: 302
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
GTG: 822
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
GTG: 169
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
This Is a Day of New Beginnings
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
We Know That Christ Is Raised
UMH: 610
H82: 296
PH: 495
GTG: 485
CH: 376
LBW: 189
Behold, What Manner of Love
CCB: 44
Only by Grace
CCB: 42
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who claims your children as your own beloved:
Grant us the faith to accept your proclamation
for ourselves and for all your children;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one who proclaims that we are all your beloved children. We are in awe of the value you place on each one of us. Help us to live into that glory and to see others as your beloved. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially when we fail to value ourselves or others as your beloved.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We live too often as if we are not of much value. We spend most of our time trying to convince ourselves and others that we are worthwhile. When that fails, we proclaim ourselves worthy because we have said others are unworthy. Forgive us and renew our faith in your proclamation that we are your beloved so that we may live as your loving children. Amen.
One: You are God’s beloved. Give thanks for that and share the good news with others that they are also God’s beloved.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God, who reigns over all creation. All that is belongs to you. All people are your people.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We live too often as if we are not of much value. We spend most of our time trying to convince ourselves and others that we are worthwhile. When that fails we proclaim ourselves worthy because we have said others are unworthy. Forgive us and renew our faith in your proclamation that we are your beloved so that we may live as your loving children.
We give you thanks for the love with which you hold us. We are blessed to be your children, made in your image. We give you thanks for the gifts you have given to your children so that we can share in your creative work. We thank you for Jesus who shows us how to live as a beloved child of God.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need and especially for those who find it so hard to believe that they are loved by anyone. We pray for those separated from their loved ones. We pray for all who work to reclaim those who have been rejected by society.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Belonging To God
by Katy Stenta
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Prepare ahead of time: Letter and envelope—maybe one for everyone: either the lick or sticker kind. Each envelope has the “GOD” written on it.
Hello!
Today we are going to talk about baptism. Baptism is special because it is where we acknowledge that we are beloved and belong to God. Of course we already belong to God, but baptism is a way to seal that acknowledgment.
John is baptizing people from all over to tell them that they belong to God.
He did such a good job that people started asking John if he was the Messiah.
He laughed and said, “Not even close!”
But I’ll tell you a secret, he did such a good job, that even Jesus came to be baptized by him.
Do you want to practice being sealed in God’s love?
Let’s try it with an envelope instead of water. Here we go:
(Either show or have everyone do it individually.)
Here we can write our name on this piece of paper and put It in the envelope to show that I belong to God. Then we will put our paper in the envelope, not because we need to send our names to God, but because we can take it home and remember we already belong to God.
That’s what Jesus did.
He got baptized,
And Jesus was God’s Son
And so he got baptized
And God confirmed it by saying
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Let’s pray:
Dear God,
Thank you
For helping us
To know
We belong to you
Through
Baptism.
Help us
Remember that
When we feel
Alone.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 12, 2025 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- God Promises to Be With Us by Tom Willadsen based on Isaiah 43:1-7, Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22, Psalm 29.
- Second Thoughts: A Baptism Made Complete by Chris Keating. As we celebrate Jesus’ baptism, we recall the journeys of our own baptisms, remembering especially President Jimmy Carter’s lifelong dedication to God.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin, Dean Feldmeyer.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children’s Sermon: Belonging To God by Katy Stenta based on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22.
God Promises to Be With Usby Tom Willadsen
Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
As the new year begins, what are we anticipating? What coming event, hoped for, imagined, or scheduled, has us on tiptoes? When John led his movement of repentance, all the people were filled with excited anticipation.
When the good news reached Samaria, the whole idea was just absurd. Who saw that coming? (Okay, Jesus did in Acts 1, but we weren’t paying attention.)
When God’s people were devastated and broken in exile, the Lord promised to be with them, to redeem them, to bring them back home. The Lord said, “I love you.”
In the Scriptures
Psalm 29 — The Voice of the Lord
This psalm is a hymn of praise to the power of the Lord. “The Voice of the Lord” is repeated four times, reinforcing the awesome power of God. The first reference has the voice over the waters, which recalls the moment when the Lord began creating the universe. Thunder is probably the closest thing we know to the experience described by the psalm. In the region of Israel, thunderstorms off the Mediterranean were not only awe-inspiring, but they were also life-giving, bringing necessary moisture to an arid environment.
Isaiah 43:1-7 — Fear Banished
Twice this passage tells the reader not to be afraid. It is a reassuring passage. It is very powerful to hear God speaking the words, “I love you.” I’m pretty sure this is the only place in scripture where the Lord utters those words. I once asked a congregation to add their own names as the text was read: “I have called you, insert your name, you are mine.” The passage banishes fear but raises the question: Why were they afraid in the first place?
Well, first of all, the prophet gave this word to the people when they were in exile in Babylon. Their holy city had been plundered, some of them were in prison in a distant, foreign land. Yet the people should fear God, not the Babylonians. God had, in effect, waged war on them because of their unfaithfulness, neglecting the most vulnerable in society. The Babylonians were merely the Lord’s instruments. This word comes to the people who are desolate, broken, and in despair. While they have every reason to fear God, God tells them not to. It says that God will act to bring them back home, redeem / ransom those who are held captive, and promises to be with them.
What does this passage say to prosperous, modern, 21st-century American Protestants? Whom should we fear? What does redemption look like for us?
Acts 8:14-17 — Context is Key
One could read this passage as a kind of “completion” of the baptism of the Samaritans, as if Peter and John needed to come from Jerusalem to seal the sealing. The context is, however, quite important. Philip, a Greek-speaking Jew, had gone to Samaria and preached the good news of Jesus Christ. The Samaritans received the news joyfully. The Samaritans were bitter enemies of the Jews and had been for centuries. Yet, way back in Acts 1:8, just before Jesus ascended into heaven, he mentions Samaria among the places the disciples will be his witnesses, after they have received the power of the Holy Spirit. Philip was doing exactly what Jesus told the disciples to do. It was shocking then, and it was shocking seven chapters later.
Only Luke, among the gospels, includes the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan women at the well appears in John’s gospel. That story demonstrates the animosity between Jews and Samaritans. Peter and John traveled about 40 miles to Samaria because the news of Philip’s ministry was extraordinary. Perhaps the Holy Spirit led Peter and John to Samaria so they could see for themselves that the Samaritans had accepted the gospel.
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 — The Baptizer
We heard some of this reading during Advent, when John was preparing the way for the Lord. We don’t get the brood of vipers this week, but we do get that John understood his role as one pointing to the coming Messiah. There was a sort of messianic movement around John the Baptizer, but here he denies messiah status. At church camp, I sang a song that went “He must increase, we must decrease, his banner over me is love,” which comes straight from John 3:30. They drilled humility into Presbyterians at a young age.
The baptism itself is sort of anticlimactic; it certainly lacks the special effects of Mark’s account of the baptism, where the sky is “cloven in twain” or “rent asunder,” as some older translations record it. In Luke’s telling of Jesus’ baptism, he was simply praying after all the people had been baptized when the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove. It is not clear whether the voice from heaven was heard by the crowds who had been baptized or only heard by Jesus.
In the News
The new NCAA football championship model has nearly reached completion. By January 12, we’ll know which two teams are vying for the title. At this writing it’s possible that it will be a showdown between two Big Ten teams. Georgia, at number 2, is the highest-seeded team still in contention.
The congregation I serve has been scrambling to welcome refugee families to the community. With the change of presidential administrations, it is feared that the flow of refugees will slow or even stop as it did early in President Trump’s first administration.
In the Sermon
The 2024 election was certified six days ago. Some marked the fourth anniversary of the insurrection with horror, others marked this year’s acceptance of the election results as vindication. As a nation, we are less than a week away from an inauguration that is different from any in American history.
It’s early in the calendar year. There are probably some people in the pews who have managed to keep their New Year’s resolutions until now! There are probably a few more who are waiting for Ash Wednesday, a kind of mulligan for failed resolutions.
But what are we waiting for? What are we awaiting with eager excitement? Today’s texts point to a future that is in God’s hands and better than we can imagine. Can we dream? Do we dare to dream?
God promises to be with us. God says, “I love you.” God sent Jesus to lead us. What now?
SECOND THOUGHTSA Baptism Made Complete
by Chris Keating
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Some people will remember President Jimmy Carter as a dedicated humanitarian, a man who built houses for the poor and worked tirelessly to eradicate the world of guinea worm disease. Others may recall the ways inflation grew out of control when he was president, or his faithful but failed attempts to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis.
For many others, he was a plain-spoken Sunday School teacher, a peanut farmer, and one-term Governor of Georgia who became president by promising “I’ll never lie to you.” Across his century-long life, he also became the author of more than 30 books and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
President Carter, who died December 29, 2024, and who was laid to rest last week, wove a complex legacy as a politician and human rights advocate. He set a new standard for former presidents and will likely be known for having the most consequential post-presidency in modern history. All of those achievements and accomplishments are notable and enduring, but it is arguable that none were more important than his lifelong faith. In the words of a prayer commonly used during funerals, we celebrate today that Jimmy Carter’s baptism has now been made complete.
Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism signaled his willingness to submit to God’s reign by turning from the ways of the world. Christians recall Jesus’ submersion into the muddy, murky waters of human sin as well as his rising to new life. In our own baptism, as Paul reminds us, we recall that as Christ was raised to new life, “we might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)
In his well-researched book on the theology and practice of Christian funerals, Thomas Long makes clear the connection between baptism and death. He reminds us that Christians see baptism as the beginning of a long journey through life, a “journey along a road that Jesus himself traveled. Christians travel this road in faith, not knowing fully where it will lead and sometimes only seeing one step ahead. But they keep putting one foot in front of the other, traveling in faith to the end.” (Long, Accompany Them With Singing, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).
While “Baptized Christian” might not have ever appeared on Jimmy Carter’s business card, it is clear that his life was shaped by the contours of this baptismal journey. He openly claimed the title of “Born again” Christian when he ran for office, something no other candidate had ever done. Many saw that as a liability, though initially, it seemed southerners embraced his view. Yet during his reelection campaign, the tides shifted as more persons equated the term evangelical with conservative politics.
Carter, however, did not ever see “born again” as a marketing ploy to attract votes. While he became what some called “the wrong type of evangelical for the evangelicals of the Christian right,” Carter upheld a vision of faith rooted in John’s baptismal proclamations and Jesus’ announcement of the Gospel: good news to the poor, release to the captives, and freedom to the oppressed.
Later in his life, Carter’s faith convictions led him to reject the Southern Baptist Church when it refused to ordain women. Faith guided his denouncing of racism and his pursuit of peace.
“I’ve had a varied life and a dramatic one,” Carter wrote in his 1996 book Living Faith. “I have moved from a naval career to farming, then to a political life, and, since the end of my presidency, to a challenging and delightful life as a college professor, a volunteer activist, and a grandfather.” He wrote that faith provided his life with stability but then corrected himself. “Come to think about it, stability is not exactly the right word, because to have faith in something is an inducement not to dormancy but to action. To me, faith is not just a noun but also a verb.”
Those who followed Carter knew the truth of that statement. Faith was an active verb for him, sending him across the globe to monitor elections and improve the health of millions. When his loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980 sent him into a time of perplexing doubt and depression, Carter spent some time discerning the next faithful step he and his wife should take. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale University, who worked with Carter for many years, recounted a story of how that deeply personal loss led Carter to a renewed sense of mission.
Sonnenfeld tells the story of watching Carter address a room full of CEOs in Atlanta, Georgia. The former president asked the executives if any of them had ever been fired. “Perhaps a quarter of the folks in the room raised their hands,” Sonnenfeld recalls. Among them was Bernie Marcus, a former executive of Home Depot who had been intensely critical of the former president. The executive shared how infuriated he had been by that injustice and how it had also fueled a sense of mission in his life. “Carter replied, with tears welling up, ‘Bernie, that is how I felt, except I wasn’t fired by a board manipulated by an activist; I was fired by the American people—in the spotlight and left with no purpose and my dream shattered and no financier to back me. But I am dedicated to waging peace.’”
A former president, yes, and a humanitarian, a Nobel laureate, painter, author, and more. But primarily a dedicated Christian whose life bore witness to the promises made at his baptism.
Carter, of course, was no saint. He was as human as any of us and had a public record that can be debated in any number of ways. Yet the singularity of his commitment to faith has few parallels among U.S. Presidents.
I experienced this once on a cold, rainy night in 1996, years after Carter had left the White House. That evening, several thousand people lined up outside the church where I served as an associate pastor. Across the street, a few protestors from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS, stood in the mud, trying unsuccessfully to draw attention to themselves. As the crowd kept growing, I opened the door and welcomed President Carter into our church. He moved quickly into our offices, shaking a few hands and chatting with staff before passing the dinner we had ordered for him so he could get to work by signing books.
A few weeks earlier, a bookstore in town called me wondering if our church might like to host a book signing of Carter’s book, Living Faith. Before I realized that I probably should clear this with others, I excitedly replied, “Sure.” I was then left with the task of convincing the senior pastor, church board, and hundreds of members of a strongly Republican Presbyterian church that this was a great idea. Fortunately, most were enthusiastic. After all, few churches will ever say no to an event that results in thousands of people waiting in line to get through its doors.
Carter was pleasant but focused. He did not want anyone to remain in the cold for long, so he got to work quickly and quietly autographing all 3,400 books. He was especially concerned that any volunteers from Habitat for Humanity receive extra recognition. “It’s like this everywhere he goes,” one of the Secret Service agents told me, confiding that some former presidents would express resentment at the attention Carter received. Yet for Carter, it was just another step in his long baptismal journey of service and faith.
And along the way of that journey, like countless people of faith, Carter was led by that powerful voice of the Lord that thunders and roars. Today, his baptism complete, we can lean forward to hear God’s own benedictory epitaph: “This is my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 — John the Baptizer speaks of the coming of the Messiah
“As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah…” So profound were their messianic expectations that the people nearly identified the wrong man as the Messiah. For us, the question might very well be, what do we expect from the Messiah?
The Danger of Expectations
Expectations can have a deleterious effect on your trip to Mexico. If you are a typical American, you will look at the faucets in your bathroom and see “C” and “H” expecting them to stand for “Cold” and “Hot.” But in Mexico, the word for Hot is “Caliente.” And the word for Cold is “Helado.”
* * *
The Benefit of Expectations
In Harvard social psychologist Robert Rosenthal’s classic study, all the children in one San Francisco grade school were given a standard IQ test at the beginning of the school year. The teachers were told the test could predict which students could be expected to have a spurt of academic and intellectual functioning. The researchers then drew random names out of a hat and told the teachers that these were the children who had displayed a high potential for improvement.
The overall result was that those kids, the randomly selected kids, averaged four more IQ points on the second test than the group of students who were not identified. Gains were most dramatic in the lowest grades. First graders whose teachers expected them to advance intellectually jumped 27.4 points, and the second graders who were identified increased on average 16.5 points more than their peers. One little Latin-American child who had been classified as mentally retarded with an IQ of 61 scored 106 after his selection as a late bloomer.
When the teachers expected their students to improve, their attitude and behavior toward the students changed such that the students actually did improve.
* * *
God as Parent
“You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (v.22)
With a single sentence, Luke describes God doing three things that are essential for good and effective parenting:
- You are my son. This establishes the relationship without question or qualification. You and I are connected in a way that cannot be undone. We are joined at the hip for the rest of our lives.
- Whom I love. As wood or coal fuels a fire, so love fuels our relationship. It is unconditional, given freely as a gift.
- With you, I am well pleased. I approve of who you are and what you do. When I look upon you and watch you, I feel joy.
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22; Acts 8:14-17
What The Holy Spirit Does
The Holy Spirit figures large in both passages. In Luke, the Spirit descends gently, like a dove, upon Jesus, enabling him to hear God’s approving, grace-filled voice. In Acts, Peter and John go to Samaria to pray for the Samaritans who have accepted Jesus as the Messiah but who have, as yet, not received the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Christian tradition holds that four things attach when the Holy Spirit is active in a person’s life. Receiving the Holy Spirit is often described as a deeply personal and transformative experience. Within Christian theology, it’s said to bring several key changes:
- Inner Transformation: The Holy Spirit is believed to transform a person’s heart and mind, leading them to think and act in ways that align with Christian values.
- Spiritual Gifts: People may receive specific gifts, such as wisdom, prophecy, or healing, which are meant to help them serve others and grow spiritually.
- Guidance and Comfort: The Holy Spirit is also seen as a guide, providing wisdom and direction in life’s decisions, as well as offering comfort in times of trouble.
- Fruits of the Spirit: Believers often show qualities such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
* * *
The Importance of Repentance
Luke’s description of John the Baptizer and his message is, perhaps, the most detailed of all the gospel accounts. But rather than spending time describing John’s appearance, Luke concentrates on John’s message.
John is, Luke tells us, preparing the way by which the Messiah will enter the world. And to prepare the way, he is “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” When people ask John what, specifically, they should do to demonstrate their repentance, he gives them specific answers.
- Work to do good. Not doing bad isn’t enough.
- Give charitably out of your excess. “If you have two coats, give one…”
- Whatever power you may have (tax collectors and soldiers), do not exploit it for personal gain.
- Be content with what you have.
The Voice of YHWH
The psalmist opens by telling the worshipers to “ascribe” certain attributes to YHWH.
To “ascribe” means to attribute something to a specific cause, source, or author. It’s often used when you want to say that a particular quality, action, or event is due to a particular person or thing.
Among the qualities the poet ascribes to God are glory and strength. So strong is the Lord that all it takes is God’s voice — a single spoken word to wreak havoc upon the earth. The description he gives might as easily be ascribed to hurricanes and tornadoes: Thunder over bodies of water; breaking off cedar trees; flashing forth flames and fire (lightning?); shaking the wilderness (earthquakes?); causing oaks to whirl and strips the forest bare (forest fires or tornadoes?); and floods.
The psalmist does not say that God causes all these things, but that when we witness these things and the power that they represent, we have something by which we can compare God’s power and strength.
If God’s voice is that powerful, how much more so the power of God’s love?
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:Isaiah 43:1-7
The Beloved is Unique
Through the prophet Isaiah, God proclaims a wealth of divine love for the nation of Israel, announcing, “you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you.” There’s nothing all that special about this one nation, except God’s love for it.
Sara Hendren says she and her husband had that same experience when they had their first child, who has Down syndrome. She was “just absolutely smitten with and in love with this singular human being.” In contrast, every visit to the doctor was all about “charts and measures and numbers and things, risks, and possibilities.” None of that had anything to do with the immense love they felt for their child and the possibilities they began to create for him to have as beautiful a life as possible.
As a result, his birth, she says, “invited me to rethink human worth entirely and in such a way that introduced me to all kinds of other people who have disabilities of all kinds, how it just lit up my imagination for those artifacts that bridge the body and the world. But most of all, what does it mean to be a gifted and contributing human being? Where does dignity come from, and how do we talk about it, and how do we plan for it? Well, there’s just so much to say about that.”
In a similar way, God is smitten with God’s people, and we live in the glow of that love.
* * *
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Water in the Desert
In the desert country of Palestine, the water images in the gospels remind us of God’s abundance, coming when it’s needed.
Author Sarah Bessey writes about a time when her faith was becoming thin, explaining, “I worried that God was angry at me. I worried that I was going to lose my faith, the thing that I was clinging to with white knuckles by now, like a kid trying to force last year’s favorite shirt to fit after a growth spurt. I had always loved Jesus. Was I losing Jesus? I worried that I would lose my family, my friends, my understanding of the world. I was scared of my anger and my grief, terrified of what I already knew, and begging myself not to know it. Every answer I had memorized had become inadequate. I wrung my soul’s hands.”
Out on a desert hike with her husband, she remembers, “When we fell silent at the picnic table, we realized we were hearing something. Was that…the sound of…water? In the desert? Our eyes met and we stood up, turning toward the sound. We walked to the ridge behind our picnic table and peered down what we had initially thought was just a crevasse: there were trees beneath us; their tops were at our feet. It was a hillside leading to a small, bright creek running at the bottom. We scrambled down the bank and farther into the trees that had been below our line of sight, lower and lower toward the river. We reached the edge of the laughing creek, skidding the last few steps. Unthinkingly, I kicked off my dusty sandals and walked barefoot right into the water. The light came through the trees, and I could see clear to the bottom of the creek. I knelt down, right into the red rock bed, and plunged my hands into the cool water, groaning aloud with pleasure. My swollen feet rejoiced.” (from Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith)
The baptism of Jesus is full God’s abundant care, including the water and God’s message of blessing.
* * *
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
The Betas are Here
If your congregation baptizes a baby this year, this child will be among the first in Generation Beta, or Gen B. This generation will include children born this year through 2039. Morning Brew notes, “These kids, whose parents will mostly hail from Gen Z (born 1995 to 2009) and the youngest millennial (born 1980 to 1994) ranks, represent the second generation born entirely in the 21st century, and many of them may live to see the 22nd.” AI will shape their lives in ways we can’t imagine yet, and “many from this new generation may not even remember the first time a human walks on Mars or ever sit in the driver’s seat of a car that can’t drive itself.”
Mark McCrindle, the demographer who also coined the name Generation Alpha for people born between 2010 and 2024, plans to use Greek letters for future generations, adding a new generation every fifteen years. He predicts that by 2035, Generation Beta will make up 16% of the global population.
* * *
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Precious Water
As John baptizes Jesus, he has abundant water at hand, even in the desert. In our lives, water is becoming scarce. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Potawatomi Nation, writes, “It was previously unthinkable that one would pay for a drink of water; but as careless economic expansion pollutes fresh water, we now incentivize privatization of springs and aquifers. Sweet water, a free gift of the Earth, is pirated by faceless corporations who encase it in plastic containers to sell. And now many can’t afford what was previously free, and we incentivize wrecking public waters to create demand for the privatized. What induces people to buy bottled water from a corporation more convincingly than contaminated water flowing from the faucet? In contrast, in Indigenous societies all over the world, where remnants of gift economies endure, water is sacred and people have a moral responsibility to care for it, to keep it flowing. It is a gift, to be shared by all, and the notion of owning water is an ecological and ethical travesty.” (from The Serviceberry)
Part of the beauty of Jesus’ baptism is the water available to him and to everyone who comes to John.
* * *
Acts 8:14-17
The Holy Spirit’s Power
The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, once pastor at Riverside Church in New York, famously told about the working of the Holy Spirit in his own life.
He preached, “Years ago, when I was still living in North Carolina, someone said to me, “Brother Forbes, do you think the gospel can be preached by someone who is not Pentecostal?” Well, I wasn’t sure, for it was the only preaching I had known, but I imagined that it could happen even if I hadn’t seen or heard it. Indeed, I found out some time later that it was so. After I had moved away from my hometown, someone said to me, “Reverend Forbes, have you ever heard the true gospel from a white preacher?” Well, in theory I knew it had to be true, for God doesn’t withhold the Spirit from anyone. Though I had my doubts that a white preacher could speak with power, I came to a point in my life where I had to say, “Yes, I’ve heard it!” Some time went by, and people began to press upon me the question of the ordination of women. “Could the gospel be preached by a woman even though the holy scriptures bid a woman to keep silence in the church?” I had to ponder this, for it went against what I had known in my own church and there was much resistance from my brother clergy. But I listened to my sisters and before too long I knew the Spirit of God was calling them to preach. Who was I to get in God’s way? Now I thought I had been asked the last question about who might be called to bring me the word of the Lord. But I found out I was wrong. A new question has been posed to me and many of you know what it is. “Can gay men and lesbian women be called to preach the word of God?” Oh, I know what the Bible says, and I know what my own uneasiness says and I can see that same uneasiness in some of your faces. But I’ve been wrong before, and the Spirit has been nudging me to get over my uneasiness. Sometimes we forget Jesus’ promise — that the Spirit will lead us into all truth. Well, that must have meant the disciples didn’t know it all then, and maybe we don’t know it all now.” (James A. Forbes, Jr., Sermon preached on videotape. As quoted in Barbara K. Lundblad, Transforming the Stone.)
* * *
Acts 8:14-17
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
This passage from Acts recounts a turning point for the early churches in Samaria, as their faith deepens. The story tells us that the apostles “went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.”
We can imagine that the early believers hardly knew what they were getting with this gift. Theologian Denis Edwards writes that the Holy Spirit offers us a gift that balances the struggles of the world we live in. He says, “The Spirit of God who graciously accompanies and celebrates the emergence of every form of life delights in the emergence of human creatures who can respond to the divine self-offering love in a personal way. They are offered the gift of transforming grace. A grace-filled universe awaits their arrival. Alongside this story of grace, there is also a tragic story of the willful rejection of grace. Human beings are born into a world of grace but are also drawn toward violence and evil. In the midst of such a world, the Spirit offers freedom and salvation in a way that Christians understand as anticipating, and as directed toward, the Christ event.”
The gift of the Spirit must have further transformed their lives, as it does ours.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Ascribe to God, O heavenly beings, ascribe glory and strength.
All: Ascribe to God glory and worship God in holy splendor.
One: The voice of God is over the waters; the God of glory thunders.
All: The voice of God is powerful and full of majesty.
One: The voice of God flashes forth flames of fire.
All: The voice of God causes all in his temple to say, “Glory!”
OR
One: God comes and calls us God’s own beloved children.
All: That is news that is almost too good to be true.
One: It is God’s proclamation and so you can believe it.
All: With faith in God, we will welcome this good news.
One: God invites us to tell others they are beloved, as well.
All: We will share this wondrous news with others.
Hymns and Songs
Lift High the Cross
UMH: 159
H82: 473
PH: 371
GTG: 826
AAHH: 242
NCH: 198
CH: 108
LBW: 377
ELW: 660
W&P: 287
Renew: 297
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
UMH: 184
PH: 309
GTG: 108
NCH: 118
CH: 104
LBW: 42
ELW: 295
W&P: 181
Renew: 252
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
GTG: 734
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
GTG: 12
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELW: 834
W&P: 48
AMEC: 71
STLT: 273
Renew: 46
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
UMH: 121
H82: 469/470
PH: 298
GTG: 435
NCH: 23
CH: 73
LBW: 290
ELW: 587/588
W&P: 61
AMEC: 78
STLT: 213
O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go
UMH: 480
PH: 384
GTG: 833
NNBH: 210
NCH: 485
CH: 540
LBW: 324
AMEC: 302
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
GTG: 822
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
GTG: 169
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
This Is a Day of New Beginnings
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
We Know That Christ Is Raised
UMH: 610
H82: 296
PH: 495
GTG: 485
CH: 376
LBW: 189
Behold, What Manner of Love
CCB: 44
Only by Grace
CCB: 42
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who claims your children as your own beloved:
Grant us the faith to accept your proclamation
for ourselves and for all your children;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one who proclaims that we are all your beloved children. We are in awe of the value you place on each one of us. Help us to live into that glory and to see others as your beloved. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially when we fail to value ourselves or others as your beloved.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We live too often as if we are not of much value. We spend most of our time trying to convince ourselves and others that we are worthwhile. When that fails, we proclaim ourselves worthy because we have said others are unworthy. Forgive us and renew our faith in your proclamation that we are your beloved so that we may live as your loving children. Amen.
One: You are God’s beloved. Give thanks for that and share the good news with others that they are also God’s beloved.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God, who reigns over all creation. All that is belongs to you. All people are your people.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We live too often as if we are not of much value. We spend most of our time trying to convince ourselves and others that we are worthwhile. When that fails we proclaim ourselves worthy because we have said others are unworthy. Forgive us and renew our faith in your proclamation that we are your beloved so that we may live as your loving children.
We give you thanks for the love with which you hold us. We are blessed to be your children, made in your image. We give you thanks for the gifts you have given to your children so that we can share in your creative work. We thank you for Jesus who shows us how to live as a beloved child of God.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need and especially for those who find it so hard to believe that they are loved by anyone. We pray for those separated from their loved ones. We pray for all who work to reclaim those who have been rejected by society.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN’S SERMONBelonging To God
by Katy Stenta
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Prepare ahead of time: Letter and envelope—maybe one for everyone: either the lick or sticker kind. Each envelope has the “GOD” written on it.
Hello!
Today we are going to talk about baptism. Baptism is special because it is where we acknowledge that we are beloved and belong to God. Of course we already belong to God, but baptism is a way to seal that acknowledgment.
John is baptizing people from all over to tell them that they belong to God.
He did such a good job that people started asking John if he was the Messiah.
He laughed and said, “Not even close!”
But I’ll tell you a secret, he did such a good job, that even Jesus came to be baptized by him.
Do you want to practice being sealed in God’s love?
Let’s try it with an envelope instead of water. Here we go:
(Either show or have everyone do it individually.)
Here we can write our name on this piece of paper and put It in the envelope to show that I belong to God. Then we will put our paper in the envelope, not because we need to send our names to God, but because we can take it home and remember we already belong to God.
That’s what Jesus did.
He got baptized,
And Jesus was God’s Son
And so he got baptized
And God confirmed it by saying
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Let’s pray:
Dear God,
Thank you
For helping us
To know
We belong to you
Through
Baptism.
Help us
Remember that
When we feel
Alone.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 12, 2025 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
