“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with^[f]water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Mark 1:4-8

“A passenger in a taxi tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him something. The driver screamed and lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus and drove up over the curb, stopping inches from a large window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab. Then the driver quietly said, “Please don’t do that! You scared the daylights out of me.” The passenger, who was also frightened, apologized and said he didn’t realize a tap on the shoulder could startle someone so much—to which the driver replied, “It’s really not your fault. Today is my first day driving a cab. I’ve been driving a hearse for 25 years.”

“The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.” (Buechner, Frederick. Listening to Your Life. HarperOne. Kindle Edition.)

As a pastor I have the opportunity to see people at their best and at their worst. I often walk with people who are nearing the end of their lives. And as I sit and talk with family, I find we often reflect upon how much the world has changed, and together we agree that 2020 has been like nothing we have ever seen. There was no “steeling ourselves against this harshness of reality” as Buechner says, because no one could have imagined such a year of trials.

The love, mercy and Grace that comes to us through Jesus Christ, my friends, is truly startling. That is why we are encouraged to remember our baptisms often. John the Baptist says, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.” While John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, our baptism into Jesus is our genesis to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is this baptism, and our remembrance of this baptism daily that steels us for the best and the worst of our lives.

Pastor Dave

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.” James 4:1-2

“Our eldest daughter, Ann, invited her college roommate to join our large family for Thanksgiving dinner. As families sometimes do, we got into a lively argument over a trivial subject until we remembered we had a guest in our midst. There was an immediate, embarrassed silence. “Please don’t worry about me,” she said. “I was brought up in a family too.”

“Alive and Changing: God speaks to us through our lives, we often too easily say. Something speaks anyway, spells out some sort of godly or godforsaken meaning to us through the alphabet of our years, but often it takes many years and many further spellings out before we start to glimpse, or think we do, a little of what that meaning is. Even then we glimpse it only dimly, like the first trace of dawn on the rim of night, and even then it is a meaning that we cannot fix and be sure of once and for all because it is always incarnate meaning and thus as alive and changing as we are ourselves alive and changing.” (Buechner, Frederick. Listening to Your Life. HarperOne. Kindle Edition.)

“I was brought up in a family too.” That is a funny line. It is a reminder that all of us have a variety of family experiences – many of them good – and many of them, well, not so good. I was lucky enough to be brought up in a good household – one that nurtured individualism bolstered by unconditional love. But not all people have that experience or have been lucky enough even to have been raised in a single, stable, household.

I find it of great solace that the bible is filled with familial distress – situations where sons treat their fathers rudely, and brothers seek to kill one another. It reminds us that family problems were endemic within family dynamics since the beginning of time. In other words, we are not alone when we are faced with arguments and dissention in the home – and among siblings. And even in the midst of these difficulties, G-d continued to speak – through a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night – through the prophets – finally through Jesus Christ – and today through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is about love – a love that is above all things – a love that does not change. G-d will speak to us in different ways throughout our lives, but the love of G-d through Jesus Christ will never waiver. 

Pastor Dave