Water is Thicker Than Blood: Our True Identity in Baptism

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:11:11] Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Let us pray.
[00:11:22] Living God, when the Spirit descended on Jesus at His baptism, You revealed Him as Your own beloved Son. You anointed Him with the Holy Spirit. Grant that all who are baptized into His name may keep the covenant they have made
[00:11:40] and boldly confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior now and forever. Amen.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:11:48] Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:14:56] to be baptized by him.
[00:14:59] John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?
[00:15:05] But Jesus answered him, Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.
[00:15:15] Then he consented.
[00:15:16] And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were open to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
[00:15:29] And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.
[00:15:37] This is the Gospel of our Lord.
[00:15:39] Praise to you, O Christ.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:15:42] Good morning. It's good to see you all on this beautiful January morning.
[00:16:02] And no experiments this week. You can shake my hand.
[00:16:07] I am feeling a little bit better, although I'm on a steroid, so I might be not my normal, just warm and fuzzy self.
[00:16:15] So, pray for Kim.
[00:16:18] I noticed yesterday, I was like, ooh, I don't know where that came from.
[00:16:21] But I blame it on the drugs.
[00:16:23] Anyway, thanks for the prayers and a little space to start to feel better.
[00:16:29] We're here today by the river with John and the crowds, and he'd been preaching and teaching and inviting folks to come and be baptized, to begin a new life, to experience forgiveness and reconciliation and renewal.
[00:16:44] People had come to him from Judea and Jerusalem, confessed their sins, they were baptized in the Jordan into a new and changed life.
[00:16:53] and on this day this particular day Jesus happens to be there too he had come from Nazareth to be also baptized by John of course John at first protests and says I need to be baptized
[00:17:07] by you not the other way around but he relents Jesus is baptized and they hear the voice that voice that spoke creation into being saying you are my son my beloved here the beginning of
[00:17:25] his ministry we're granted a glimpse of jesus identity he is the beloved one god's son and the gospels claim that jesus his baptism is a pattern in a way for our life as in as much as
[00:17:44] we are buried with him beneath the waters our old selves washed away we are also emerged from the water, raised, resurrected to new and abundant life. That's the movement, the rhythm of baptism, the path of our lives as day by day God's Spirit works to bury, to wash away all those things that
[00:18:12] are not of God that are within us, that separate us from God, so that we might be raised by the spirit to live faithfully and well. To be the people God longs for us to be. To be the people
[00:18:29] we probably long to be. Most of us have that self that we want to be. Merton called it our true self, the person we catch glimpses of in our best moments, the person we know we were meant to be
[00:18:47] before life got so complicated and we're most of us pretty decent people we we are trying to be people of faith trying to do the right things treat others well be responsible faithful to be
[00:19:03] that best self and we all carry things we'd like to leave behind forget mistakes that haunt us labels that limit us or a nagging sense sometimes that our lives maybe should matter more than they
[00:19:24] feel like they currently do in the waters of baptism god meets that self that true self speaks to us at the deepest most foundational level of who we are who we're meant to be reminds us of who we are and that god is with us to help us be that person baptism is more than a
[00:19:51] religious right just this thing we do in church it is a foundational identity shift or maybe since we're in the season of epiphany it's a revealing of our true identity it's god looking at us with all of our history all our flaws and imperfections all our hidden potential
[00:20:11] and saying i am claiming you i love you you belong to me your old story ends here a new one has begun now even with that we know that baptism isn't magic you don't go under the water and come
[00:20:33] up with a perfect life in an instant wesley i've said this share this with you before said because he was in a tradition like ours where many folks were baptized as as young children or infants
[00:20:45] he would say that most of them had sent away any grace they received in baptism by the time they were nine or ten years old some of us may have been ahead of that curve a bit but you know in
[00:21:00] that way then baptism is a beginning it marks us it's about our identity about who we are and who we've been called and claimed to be in christ i think of that scene in the movie
[00:21:17] oh brother where art thou where where delmar who has been newly baptized leaves money on a windowsill for a stolen pie now the money's also stolen so don't give him too much credit but you know the the intent is there a tiny act but a a shift in identity he's no longer a thief
[00:21:42] he's a person of grace he belongs to jesus he has a new name and a new and better story the opportunity for a different future this is the challenge and the opportunity for us on this
[00:22:01] baptism of the lord sunday it does give us baptism a new name a new identity a calling and by grace we have the opportunity to to learn how to answer that call and to live into it it requires daily
[00:22:15] cooperation with god every morning we have the opportunity to remember who we are and then in light of that to ask ourselves how does a beloved child of god treat people today how does a person
[00:22:31] with a new future handle the old stresses i think it's interesting and telling that jesus the one person who didn't need the waters of baptism insisted on getting into the river joined us in the water waded into our circumstance and condition it's a reminder of just how much
[00:22:55] god loves us in part showing us that that god is not a distant god who remains safely on the shore while we we make the best of it in in the water but in the chaos of the water and our lives but
[00:23:09] no he gets in the water with us stands knee deep in our stuff and the reality of our lives is with us and for us in every way. Emmanuel. When Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened and the voice
[00:23:27] said, you are my son, my beloved. And when you were baptized, when we were baptized, or when you will be, that same voice speaks to us, to the person who feels invisible. You are seen. To the
[00:23:43] one who feels like a failure you are my beloved to the ones who feel defined by their mistakes or their past you are forgiven you are a new creation i've shared before that a number of
[00:24:02] the fonts in the early church were more like a small pool with descending stairs on one side ascending stairs on the other and the imagery was clear you you and your old self stepped down into
[00:24:15] the water we're buried with Christ only to be raised with Christ out of the water walking up the stairs ascending into a new and abundant life to be the person God knows you deeply to be
[00:24:30] a new name and a new purpose and a new call I wrote bits of this sermon last week I tried to finish it this week in a in a difficult week a violent week in our country we had january 6th
[00:24:57] occurred this week just reminders of that shootings by agents in minneapolis and portland we're a violent society and more often we seem to want to order things by might makes right and whoever has the most might is right and sadly I struggle to see an end to it or even a de-escalation
[00:25:28] we all have opinions about it that's the great thing about living in a free country we can have opinions we don't all agree hopefully we can dialogue about those opinions peacefully with respect we can disagree in love so i i'm offering some space for this this morning because my guess
[00:25:56] is many of you are also wrestling with it what to make of it how we move forward faithfully and well how we're called to be the church in this moment um how to respond how to talk about it
[00:26:09] all of that to hold some space for it i'm not trying to be partisan but i'm concerned about where we are where we're heading and i wanted a whole space for it because if the gospel can't
[00:26:30] speak to this then what good is it we might as well just close the doors and go home baptism speaks to this moment because in the waters of baptism our primary citizenship changes our allegiance our loyalty shifts we're invited to leave behind the the the empire of peace enforced
[00:27:02] by violence and might rome that was the context in which these folks in judea and jerusalem were being baptized by john they were leaving behind their allegiance if they had any to that empire and were becoming citizens and residents of Christ's kingdom of peace.
[00:27:21] They might still live in Roman-occupied Judea, but they no longer belonged there.
[00:27:32] Too often we define ourselves by our differences.
[00:27:36] I'm guilty of it.
[00:27:38] We associate mostly with those who are educated like us, who think like us, who have a similar income bracket.
[00:27:46] we live in our tribes deeply divided by politics and race and gender and 100 other things and too often define ourselves by which side of the aisle we sit on or should think we should sit on we
[00:28:02] demonize and seek to defeat those who are on the other side which as I said last week makes it easier to hate them dismiss them exclude them or worse but as one writer notes baptism says all of
[00:28:19] those things, all those categories, all those identities are accidentals. They aren't our core.
[00:28:31] Our primary identity is in Christ. We are more connected to the person sitting across from us than we are separate from them. Will Williman used to say it this way, water is thicker than blood. Hang on to that. Water is thicker than blood. There are those who
[00:28:59] would have you believe otherwise. Baptism means we belong to Jesus. And belonging to Jesus means seeing our neighbors, all of them, through the eyes of Christ, who saw everyone as a child of God, worthy of acceptance and mercy and love. No exceptions. For those who are now in Christ,
[00:29:25] the question should never be when we think about our day is this action leftist or right wing is is is it liberal or conservative is it is it socialist or capitalist the jesus question is
[00:29:42] always does what i am saying and doing look out for the interests of my neighbor more than my own and does it manifest the fruit of the spirit of christ love joy peace patience kindness generosity gentleness self-control does it point others what i'm doing
[00:30:15] and i'm saying does it point others to the reign of christ in my life does it let them know where my citizenship lies? Does it point them to Jesus' love for them? That's the journey we are called to
[00:30:29] in baptism. It's the way of holiness, which simply means loving God and loving neighbor until heaven comes on earth. Martin Luther used to take a little water, touch his forehead every day, whisper to himself, I am baptized. I think it was his way of reminding himself daily of who he was, who he was
[00:30:52] called to be so i invite us to do the same this year when the world tries to give us a story of fear or hatred or division when you hear those voices saying trying to convince you that that
[00:31:07] we are right and they are wrong and therefore they matter less than we do or when you feel the weight of your own mistakes or even if life is going great and and maybe you begin to rely on your
[00:31:19] own strength a bit too much and start to forget that it is all grace remember your name to whom you belong you're not your job title you're not your political party you're not your best day
[00:31:41] thankfully you are also not your worst day your god's dream come to life bought with a price claimed by grace set on a path to a life that truly matters in a few moments in the service
[00:32:01] Jim and I will invite you to come forward to reaffirm your faith to remember or anticipate your baptism it's a wonderful way to begin a new year I invite you to when you come to touch the water
[00:32:16] remembering that Jesus stood in the water with and for you you can take a stone from the bowl if you like as a reminder of who you are and to whom you belong.
[00:32:29] Christ invites us to stop living the lie that we are enemies or that we should fear one another or that we're not enough or that we're alone or unchanged and to start living the truth
[00:32:41] that we are all beloved, we are all forgiven, and in Christ we are home.
[00:32:52] Amen.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:32:53] Let us pray.
[00:33:15] Loving Lord, God of grace, as we remember Christ's baptism today, we pray that you would open the heavens, pour your Spirit upon us, shine your light into the darkness of our world, renew us in your Spirit.
[00:33:36] Lord, in your mercy.
[00:33:38] Amen.
[00:33:39] Lord of seekers and prophets, as you sent John to prepare the way for Jesus, we pray that you would open our eyes and our minds to see and to hear those who speak your message today in new and bold ways
[00:33:59] and embolden us to live your word in a world that so desperately needs the love of Jesus.
[00:34:10] Lord, in your mercy.
[00:34:12] Amen.
[00:34:12] Lord of the church and the world, in Christ's baptism you unify yourself with us all and you reign over all your creation as we come to baptismal waters today may we be reborn and recreated to follow you
[00:34:38] as the one who reigns in our lives moving us to be people of justice and grace and peace Lord in your mercy hear our prayer Hear our prayer for all who are living without justice or peace.
[00:34:59] For people in places around the world and right here in our own country who are living with fear or discrimination or violence.
[00:35:11] And for all who are in positions of power to have mercy and compassion.
[00:35:17] Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
[00:35:21] For all who must live with illness, with depression or loneliness.
[00:35:26] for those in poverty and hunger and homelessness, we pray, and especially remember those who grieve today.
[00:35:38] Here in our own church community, we remember the Williams family and Ann's passing.
[00:35:49] And in our sadness, we also pray that you would send us hope and strength to work for a more just and righteous world.
[00:36:03] And in this holy space, God, But hear us lifting our own concerns and joys silently and aloud as we pray now for the Lord in your mercy.
[00:36:20] Hear our prayer.
[00:36:23] God of new life, may your mercy and your peace prevail among us.
[00:36:30] Open the heavens.
[00:36:31] Pour out your Spirit to give us, your church, the will and the strength to work to make your kingdom of love come on earth.
[00:36:40] All this we pray in the name of your beloved Son.
[00:36:44] in whom you're well pleased, who taught us to pray.
[00:36:48] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:36:53] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:36:59] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
[00:37:07] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:37:11] For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
[00:37:19] We welcome you to Davidson United Methodist Church this morning on this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, the first Sunday after Epiphany.
[00:37:28] We're so glad that you are with us here and online.
[00:37:31] Especially grateful if you are worshiping with us today for the first time.
[00:37:34] If so, I hope you will, after the service, just take a moment and step behind you into our gathering space and join us at our welcome table so that we can greet you and answer any questions you may have about the church
[00:37:47] and offer you a small gift for being with us in worship today.
[00:37:51] We're glad that everyone is here.
[00:37:54] As we begin this new year or continue to move on in this new year, just a few very brief announcements to make you aware of.
[00:38:00] our United Women in Faith is having their first unit meeting today. That'll be right after the 11 o'clock service around noon in the fellowship hall just behind you. It's a meeting and a luncheon. And so, ladies, you are invited to be a part of that around noon today. You can read
[00:38:17] more about the meeting and the luncheon in the bulletin today. As I mentioned last week, I want to mention it again today. If you are looking to deepen and strengthen your faith as we begin a
[00:38:29] new year, we have an opportunity for you. It's called Becoming Disciples of Christ. It's a small group that's going to be meeting on Wednesday evenings, beginning this Wednesday at 6 o'clock from 6 until 7. It'll meet all the way through the month of May. And you don't have to be there
[00:38:46] for every single Wednesday, so don't let that stop you. But if you can join them, they'll start this Wednesday at 6 o'clock upstairs in the Seymour Building. We have a Centering Prayer Group here of the church many of you may not know about centering prayer group that meets on monday
[00:39:01] mornings via zoom but tomorrow morning they are actually meeting in person if you'd like to know more about centering prayer and how you can bring that into your faith life in this new year hope
[00:39:13] you'll join them tomorrow morning at nine o'clock you can read about them again more in the bulletin today and if you are interested in any of these activities or these ministries or small groups There are many, many more, and we're going to be talking about them next week.
[00:39:30] We're going to have one of our Connect events throughout the morning in the fellowship hall just behind you where you can learn all about various opportunities for you to connect with the church.
[00:39:40] So I hope you'll make that plan to be here next Sunday to learn more.
[00:39:46] All of these activities, all of these events, all of these ministries happen because you give so freely and generously of yourself, including your tithes and your offerings and we're grateful for your generosity

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:39:58] gracious god your generosity overflows accept our gifts so that with your blessing we may use them

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:45:56] to proclaim christ in our community and beyond amen you may be seated brothers and sisters in christ through the sacrament of baptism god's spirit has been poured out upon water. Water poured over and immersing us. Water that flows freely for all
[00:46:25] who will receive it. Water from the streams of God's saving mercy and justice. Water that brings hope to all who thirst for righteousness. Water that refreshes life, nurtures growth, and offers new birth. Today we come to these waters to renew our commitment to Christ,
[00:46:46] who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is making all things new.
[00:46:52] And so on behalf of the church, I ask us all these questions.
[00:46:57] Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?
[00:47:05] If so, would you say, I do.
[00:47:06] Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?
[00:47:18] If so, would you say, I do.
[00:47:19] Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in His grace, and promise to serve Him as your Lord in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?
[00:47:35] If so, would you say, I do.
[00:47:39] According to the grace given to you, will you remain a faithful member of Christ's holy church and serve as Christ's representative in the world?
[00:47:49] If so, would you say, I will.
[00:47:52] I invite you to stand.
[00:47:53] as we join our voices together in confessing the faith as it's contained in the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament.
[00:48:04] I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate,
[00:48:21] was crucified, dead, and buried.
[00:48:24] The third day He rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
[00:48:32] From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
[00:48:36] I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
[00:48:49] Amen.
[00:48:50] You may be seated.

[00:48:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:48:51] The Lord be with you.
[00:49:00] Let us pray.
[00:49:01] Almighty God, the life you birthed in us by baptism into Jesus Christ will never die.
[00:49:09] Your justice never fails. Your mercy is everlasting.
[00:49:13] Your life-giving water flows, and your Spirit blows where you will.
[00:49:19] In the fullness of time, you sent Jesus, nurtured in the water of a womb.
[00:49:23] He was baptized by John and anointed by your Spirit.
[00:49:27] He called his disciples to share in the baptism of his death and resurrection, and to make disciples of all nations.
[00:49:36] O God, we confess the ways we sometimes reject Your call and stand in the way of Your work.
[00:49:42] We redirect the winds of the Spirit or we walk so far from the life-giving stream that we no longer hear its sound and forget its power.
[00:49:55] We are dry and thirsty, O God.
[00:49:58] Come refresh us.
[00:50:00] Pour out Your Holy Spirit and bless this gift of water let it be for us an ever-flowing stream of your mercy renewing in us the resurrection power of jesus christ that dying and being raised with christ
[00:50:15] we may faithfully be his body in the world and share in christ's final victory amen

[00:50:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:50:23] as you are led by god's spirit the altar is open i invite you to come remember your baptism and be

[01:00:36] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[01:00:36] thankful. And as the baptized people of God, let us remember the mission to which we are called and for which we are sent. We will be the body of Christ in our community through worship, education, fellowship, and service. Go in peace.