You are my son, the Beloved

God crying out this line leaves us with no doubt about the identity of Jesus. When John tells us that Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and Fire, I believe him. If we only knew what actually happened to us at our Baptism. How we are transformed. How we die and rise with Christ. I knew a guy in my corporate job who had his Baptismal certificate hanging up in his office. I asked him why he had his certificate there. He said it was the most important certification he had out of all his various technical certifications and degrees. HIs name was John.

The gift of water

The first Sunday after Epiphany is the Baptism of our Lord. We will be celebrating our Baptisms with a family service. The Gospel is as follows Luke 3:15-22.

5As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20added to them all by shutting up John in prison.

21Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

We will talk about the gift of water and how it brings us life. Then in terms of stewardship, I will talk about water and how important it is to our survival. So we will deal with water on a spiritual level as well as an incarnational level. Can't wiat!