I Am with You—Isaiah 43: 1-7; Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
For three and a half years, I served as a Lutheran organist while in college. Between my inexperience and the ticky, aging organ, that congregation put up with a lot in those three years. I called their vintage organ “Old Unfaithful.” One Sunday during two baptisms, it failed in the grandest of ways. [SLIDE 2] For the baptism, I was supposed to use the chimes on the organ when the pastor said “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Miraculously, the chimes worked. But then the problem came. The mechanism glitched, and the chimes wouldn’t stop. So through the remainder of the baptism, “chime, chime, chime, chime,…” while I frantically pushed every button on the thing finally settling on the off switch. It sounded like an alarm in the morning that never turns off. The pastor invited me to a meeting that next week, and I expected it to be a me getting fired like Jesus torching the chaff, but instead, he asked, “So, let’s talk about buying a new organ for this church.”
Most of us, I’m sure, have to reach back into our archives of memory to remember our baptisms. Theologically, we are told that it is the time when we publicly acknowledge our decision to have faith and follow Jesus. Growing up, it was always the same. The minister said, “In obedience to the command of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Then we were plunged rather quickly under and up in the giant green hot tub that was our baptistry.
[SLIDE 3] That pattern follows from the story of Jesus’s baptism. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story in varying levels of detail. John’s gospel references it, but it doesn’t fully record it. The story is almost identical. Jesus is baptized by John then the Holy Spirit descends on him, and a voice from the heavens says, “This is my beloved son, in whom I’m well-pleased,” or who brings great joy, as Luke says.
Thus baptism, has for centuries been this outward sign of our faith and commitment to follow Jesus. But that emphasis is also a bit too strong in the context of this story. There’s also the part of the Holy Spirit descending. It is a promise from God to be with us…as the Spirit descends, it is as if God is saying, “I am with you too, my child.” It’s a promise of support and help of walking with us each day in the difficulties life brings us.
We hear that same promise echoed in the words of Isaiah, “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God.” Over 20 times in the Bible, God says to God’s people, “I am with you.” And the best part of that promise is that nothing changes it. No matter what happens in life, God is still with you, always.
[SLIDE 4] Luke’s telling of Jesus’s baptism is a bit more fiery than Matthew or Mark’s description. We get this whole statement where John the Baptist says, “He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.” [SLIDE 5] For those who don’t know, a winnowing fork looks like a pitch fork and it’s used to toss the grain in the air to separate the seed (the wheat) from the husks (the chaff). Typically, chaff was burned because it was merely trash that offered nothing to the process and offered no nutritional value.
We tend to see this in terms of being very specific. The wheat goes to heaven and the chaff goes to hell. Look a little bit closer at the meaning though. That’s a bit too simplistic. If farmers don’t clean up the barn after each harvest, the wheat will become lost in the mounds of chaff left on the floor. They will become lost, mixed in, and rot away with the practically useless husks left behind on the floor.
If God says, “I am with you,” and that you are the beloved in whom God is also well pleased, who and what do we bring into that mix that act as chaff choking us out from fully loving and following Jesus? It’s easy to become lost in places and in the presence of people we don’t need to be around. It reminds me of an elderly pastor I was friends with. He said once, “I’ve baptized over 200 people in my ministry. I should have held a few under.”
Many places and people in our modern world look an awful lot like wheat, but they turn out to be chaff. We have to be careful of those who masquerade only to turn out to be nutritionally empty in our lives. [SLIDE 6] At Christmas a church in the US held a production that included a full band, live camels and donkeys, light show, fog machines, flying drummer angels, and Santa descending from the ceiling on a sleigh. I’m not going to call this chaff a la Luke’s gospel, but please tell me what the spiritually nutritious value of this is?
We have to be careful about the influences we allow in life which can cause us to be less faithful, less invested, and less like Jesus. A friend of mine was interviewing for a music job at a church in Florida years ago. She was asked how she handled working with a team and responding to authority. She told them that she worked well with others but was ultimately guided by the Spirit and answered to God in all things. One would think this is a good answer for a church, right? Well…the clearly irritated board chair said, “Absolutely not, this is our church, and you will obey and do what we say. When you are here and on our payroll, you are under our control.” My friend was neither offered the job nor would she ever have accepted it if she had been.
[SLIDE 7]When Jesus came to Jordan to be baptized, it wasn’t because Jesus needed to repent or atone or anything like that. It was his statement of his commitment to God. And it was God’s time to establish who Jesus was—to give him authority as the “beloved son” in whom God was well pleased. We, too, have made that same commitment, so how are we showing it? Whom do we bring into our lives to uplift us and remind of God’s goodness? How do we work creatively and enthusiastically to testify of God’s love and presence in our lives? How do we continue to be creatable, so that God is working in and through us to make a better world for those around us? Years ago, we used to have a challenge on the playground. As mouthy and sassy kids, we could say things that were not always the kindest. In response we would challenge, “If you sing it, bring it.”
Maybe the same is a bit true today. Too many people proclaim their faith and live like pharisees. Too many people use their claim to faith to hurt others and belittle them instead of lifting up and working towards redemption of those created by God. And frankly, too many people feel perfectly entitled to just be mean in our society. They need some prayer and medication or something.
In high church settings on this day, the church is told to remember your baptism. Then they are sprinkled again as the priest goes up the aisle. I am sure that the Lutheran Church in Danville, Kentucky, will never forget that baptism in 2006 when the organ started chiming like a bell choir run amok. But instead of coming down on me like a ton of bricks, Pastor Witten remembered the age of the instrument and the youthfulness of the person trying to manage it, and he offered grace instead of criticism. Remember that in our baptism we made a commitment to God that we would follow in the way of Jesus, and in return God has promised to be with us throughout our whole lives. May we be encouraged by those words to us, “This is my beloved, in whom I’m well pleased.”
Worship Service Video https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/1817405968663929/