Loading...Today is a big day for a very little girl. Baby Isabel Grace will be baptized in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s exciting to imagine what her resurrection life will look like. Ours is a life of faith, so when we make the mighty big statements of faith we make today we do so without so much as a crystal ball and definately without any guarantees but one: Jesus promises to love us forever. That’s it. Everything else is….well….is faith.
Isabel’s family is making promises on her behalf and entrusting her to God’s promises as made known in Holy Scripture from which church tradition derives the baptismal covenant.
Let’s walk through the Holy Scriptures assigned for today and look for places where our covenant with God pushes and pulls us. First, we read a heart-rending passage from my all time favorite prophet Hosea. God is pouring out God’s heart the way the parent of a prodigal child remembers all the tenderness of raising a toddler; while pining over the self-absorbed teenager who has abused and disrespected the loving parent who has provided all the child could ever need or want.
There are many places in Holy Scripture where God’s wrath flares when God’s people transgress the covenant. I can appreciate God’s wrathful reaction. Hosea, however, reveals the hurt beneath the anger and I can hardly bear the poignant pain of God’s vulnerability. My throat starts to feel tight when I think about God’s feelings being hurt over the broken covenant.
Reading Colossians is easier for me to read than Hosea. St Paul doesn’t make my throat feel tight. Instead, I feel relieved by his cogent list of disobedient behaviors which incite God’s wrath. Phew! Now I can turn my focus from God’s vulnerability to either judging the behavior of others or condemning myself for not living up to the list. Only problem is that judgement and condemnation are not what Paul’s list is designed for. Paul’s list is designed to extol God’s radical grace.
If you haven’t been invited to yet let me be the first to say give that list up already. Free yourself from judging the behavior of others and/or condemning yourself for all the ways your behavior makes you earthly. Jesus became earthly to make us eligible for heaven. There was no way we were gonna’ save ourselves from ourselves. Sin is just too big and we are just too small. No one can live up to Paul’s list. Who can live up to heavenly things above upon which we are to set our minds — only someone brought so low that there is no place left to go but up, or someone so dead there is nothing left but trust his Father to raise him from the dead.
I remember sitting under the Survivor’s tree at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial with my mother and my then infant son Aidan. Aidan was three-months old and that memorial was only four years old. It was 10:30 am on September 11, 2001 and we had no idea what was happening — except it was horrible. And we were wondering if things might possibly be even hopeless. We didn’t know what to do except go to a place where horrible earthly things were remembered with loving hopefulness. The park ranger came up to use and said that all federal buildings and parks were to be closed and “My instructions are to ask you leave. But I am not going to.” And he walked away. I said, “Mom I just want Aidan to know how much I love him no matter what happens.” She said, “Your love will never be enough, only God’s love is enough.”
Only God can raise us with Christ. Sure, we can participate in Christ’s resurrection life. One way I participate in Christ’s resurrection life is by reading the gospel of Luke assigned for today. I can be faithful to God by asking the question prompted by the fairness-infatuated brother and the wealthy barn builder, “What does my life consist of?” and “What exactly do I need and is God the one to provide that need or not?”
I’ve never successfully fooled myself even for a moment into thinking that just because my behavior is obedient that I have earned one jot of salvation. Is there such a thing as fairness in a world where an innocent man dies to exonerate the guilty? As wonderful as baby Isabel Grace is, she can never be obedient enough or fair enough or even wealthy enough to afford what her life costs Christ.
Perhaps she will be reminded like I am every day in my prayers that I can do nothing to earn God’s grace but I can respond to God’s grace. I can parlay my gratitude for the free gift of salvation into behavior congruent with Christ’s fidelity. What does that gratitude look like? Mostly, it looks like learning when and how to say, “I’m sorry.” or “Please forgive me.” Or even, the most unfair and unambitious phrase of all, “I forgive you.”
Another response to Christ’s fidelity is belonging to a Bible Study where we ask covenant kinds of questions like:
Do I conduct myself as if I am being let by cords of human kindness like God describes to the prophet Hosea, like when teaching a toddler to walk?
Do I conduct myself as if I have met the risen savior Jesus Christ?
Do I conduct myself in a manner which I would like to see baby Isabel emulate or not?
Do I conduct myself in a manner which shows that I care about the community to which I claim I belong and fulfills the mission loving people serving people?
Ultimately all my questions and conduct are subsumed in that one and only guarantee we celebrate today in the covenant with renew and into which Isabel is baptized: Jesus promises to love us forever.
