The Baptism of Our Lord Year A - Conclusion

Isaiah 42:1-9; Palm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Mathew 3:13-17

On September 2nd, 1956 I was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Kingston, New York. My parents were married there the year before. It was my grandparent’s church who drove 27 miles every week from their house in Napanoch to attend Immanuel because it was a Missouri Synod church and grandpa was particular about his brand of Lutherans, even though he belonged to the Masonic lodge, a particularity I imagine he kept to himself at Immanuel. At any rate after the baptism my parents took me home to Chicago and I don’t know if I ever returned, though my parents worshipped there on their 50th wedding anniversary and were warmly received. I was fortunate that my parents made good on their baptismal promises, especially because there was a time in my life when I didn’t. It is more likely that ones who are baptized into the kingdom only to leave shortly thereafter for a foreign land rarely return and while the baptism remains the intended outcome is washed away by the world that wouldn’t walk down the block let alone drive twenty seven miles to be connected to a community of faith. I spent some time today on Immanuel’s website and then called and spoke with their current president. It was snowing in Kingston. I felt compelled to tell him it was 68° in Fort Worth. (That was wrong and I am heartily sorry for it and sincerely repent of it.) I did sense in the things I read and in the conversation a connection with the congregation that birthed me into the kingdom. For those of us who were carried to the font remembering our baptism is a homecoming, returning to something done to us we cannot remember but can certainly recognize. That does not happen without faithful parents and sponsors who teach us the language of the kingdom so that even in the foreign land we know the way home. The world we live in is quite different from the one that saw Immanuel’s beginning, or mine for that matter, but that is true for every age. What remains the same in every context and every age is the promise of God who sends a servant to establish justice without breaking a bruised reed or quenching a dimly burning wick. What remains the same is the voice of the Lord that can do some serious damage and yet blesses people with peace. What remains the same is a God who shows no partiality even though we often wish it were not so as we are very particular about the company we keep. And finally the promise of water and word remains the same because Jesus is baptized into our flesh fulfilling all righteousness so that wherever we might go and whatever we might forget there is always a way home to Immanuel, God with us.