Remember Your Baptism

Today in the Church Year is the observance of The Baptism of Christ. In the lectionary cycle, the story of the Baptism of Christ is from Matthew 3:13-17, which recalls that Jesus insisted John baptize him that all righteousness be fulfilled. What does it mean that all righteousness be fulfilled?

From where this person is in faith, it simply means, this is where the journey of discipleship begins: repenting of a past which has been lived apart from God and other people, receiving the grace and mercy of God as a gift, rising out of the waters new in life and spirit, and going back into the world in service and faith. It is all about God's choosing to be graceful, but it is also about the individual's willingness to receive of God's grace. As Jesus chose to be baptized, so he sends His disciples out to baptize, not as a way of 'rewarding' certain behaviors, nor as a mark of having achieved some level of understanding of God's grace, but rather, as a way of entering into the fullness of God's choice to be fully faithful, fully hopeful, fully loving.

Remember your baptism this day. Remember that your baptism is an intentional choice of God to be gracious to you. Remember to live God's grace in you as you live in the world, but not of it. For you are a child of God, a disciple of Christ, and a member of the Church (the Body of Christ).

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don