Do not fear, for I
have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah
43:1b)
If my dad were still
alive, I imagine he and I would have some disagreements. You see, my old man
was very conservative. He made Archie Bunker look like Bernie Sanders. I don’t
know what he’d think if he knew that, sometime shortly after he passed, I had
done the unthinkable and changed my party affiliation to Democrat. Had he been
buried and not cremated, he might’ve spun in his grave like a Black and Decker
drill bit. He’d probably disagree with me on issues of racial justice and
LGBTQ+ rights too. The old boy was a product of his time, and pretty stubborn
once he got an idea in his head.
Of course, I don’t mean
to make this sound like my dad was a bad guy. I think, as an adult, I’ve
learned to separate the wheat from the chaff. All of us are, as Luther would
remind us, both saint and sinner. For all of my parents’ shortcomings, I was,
on balance, very lucky to have had them. They kept me fed and clothed and
sheltered, got me educated, and brought me to the services of the Lord’s house
and taught me the Chrisitan faith. I can say a lot of good things about my late
father, but perhaps the best part about being his son is knowing that, in the
end, he was proud of me. Indeed, he was well pleased with all of his
children—and that took some doing given that none of us turned out to be
particularly high achievers by worldly standards. Nevertheless, he was
delighted that we all did what we enjoyed doing. Dad might be disappointed in
my politics, but I know he’d be proud that I’m a pastor.
It might be an
interesting question to ask yourself: Would your parents be proud of the way
you turned out?
In the gospel lesson for
the Baptism of Our Lord (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22), the voice from heaven declares
the newly baptized Jesus to be his Beloved Son, with whom God is “well
pleased.” The phrase “well pleased” sounds a little tame to me, like something
you’d say if the restaurant cooked your steak the way you wanted it. I looked
this up in the Greek, and the phrase comes from a compound word eudokesa
(hudokhsa) which
my interlinear Bible translates as “I have found delight.” The root word is docheo
(docew) which means to
suppose or recognize or get an insight about something. If I had to translate
this sentence from Luke’s gospel, I’d say, “You are my Son, the Beloved; I see
something really, really cool in you!”
If you read through
Luke’s gospel up to this point, you’ll notice Jesus hasn’t really done anything
yet for his Heavenly Father to recognize as good or be proud of. God has rather
patiently overlooked the stunt Jesus pulled as a twelve-year-old when he
ditched his parents and hung out in the Temple in Jerusalem, and for which he
got a good dressing down from his mom (Luke 2:41-52). After that episode,
however, Luke tells us he was a pretty good kid who grew up to be a good adult
who humbly came to the Jordan to be baptized like all the rest. That simple act
brought a manifestation of the Holy Spirit and a verbal pat on the back from
the Almighty.
Naturally, the Feast of
the Baptism of our Lord might make us want to think about the meaning of our
own baptisms. It’s got me thinking about how I teach baptism and its
significance to the clever if somewhat attention-challenged teenagers who are
preparing to affirm their baptisms through the Rite of Confirmation. What I’m
discovering these days is a lot of kids don’t really have a point of reference
for their religious instruction. Mom and Dad send them to Confirmation class, I
think, because it’s “the right thing to do,” but I have to wonder how much of
the faith they’ve really been exposed to. They may live in a society which is
culturally Christian, but just how many folks are intellectually or spiritually
Christian? Have these youngsters experienced piety in their home? Have the
parents stepped up to the admonition in the baptismal liturgy to teach or at
least talk to their kids about what this belief system is all
about? How can youngsters affirm a sacrament they don’t understand?
Let me tell you: It’s not
easy teaching middle schoolers these days. Every kid seems to have a smart
phone and the attention span of a gnat. They’ve all been exposed to a lot of
stuff in this culture, but it seems to me they’ve not been exposed to
independence (parents seem more anxious and frightened for their children than they
were when I was a kid) or responsibility. It’s taking them longer to grow up,
and it’s a rare youngster who, like the boy Jesus in the gospel, goes searching
for answers from the elders in the Temple.
So, how do we give
baptism meaning to the generation of the semi-churched? We can’t just assume
that our church vocabulary carries any kind of meaning for Gen Z, so I think it’s
time we go all the way back to the basics. We need to define our vocabulary,
even a word like religion. What’s a religion? For me, it’s the desires
and feelings of our hearts about that which is ultimately true, which we
believe but we can’t prove or even express—things about the soul, creation, the
meaning of life. You get the idea. We can only express these things through our
shared storytelling, and we reinforce our stories through rituals and traditions
like Holy Baptism.
What does this story of
Jesus’ baptism teach us? For one thing it shows us Jesus came to be one of us,
to experience what we experience. And if Jesus is one of us, then the voice of
the proud daddy from the clouds is also meant for us. The water of baptism
washes away our disgrace, self-doubt, and disappointment with our lack of
achievement by worldly standards. The fire of baptism burns away the chaff
anger, guilt, and our unfair judgment of ourselves and others.
Every Sunday when we make
our confession and receive words of forgiveness, we can be reminded that we
belong. We’re adopted. We’ve been chosen because God has looked at
our sinful, broken, and often confused selves and said, “I see something
really, really cool in you. And you make me proud.”
I hope you feel God’s
love and approval this week. Thanks for checking out this blog. I hope you’ll
come again.
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