Sunday, January 7, 2024
Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, Lincoln, NE
Baptism of Our Lord
(narrative lectionary)
watch this service online (reading starts around 23:24; children’s sermon starts around 27:29; sermon starts around 36:04)
Reading: Mark 1:21-45
For the children’s sermon today, I asked the children about their first and middle names, whether they knew what their names meant or why they had been given those names (there were a few phone-a-friends to the rest of the assembly, haha). I shared that “Day” is actually not my given name, but is actually a nickname that sort of squishes together my first and middle names: Amanda (which means “beloved”) and Kay, which is a family name.
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We talked about how names are given to us by people who love us, which is why they often have special meaning and show a sense of belonging. I told the kids that they have another very special name, one they might not think about all that often, but one they got right there in church, or in a similar place. And that name is “Child of God.” We talked about how God names us and claims us through the waters of baptism. God comes to us with the same kind of persistent, healing, compassionate love that we see Jesus spreading around all over in our bible reading for today. I ended by having the kids go around in a circle (including me!), dipping their fingers in a bowl of water and making the sign of the cross on each other’s foreheads, saying: “[name], you are a precious child of God, and Jesus loves you very much.”
You all will probably laugh when I tell you this – but, believe it or not, there was a time in my life when I was really, really shy and nervous about making friends with new people. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true!
See, the thing is I’ve struggled with low self-esteem pretty much my whole life. I never really had a lot of friends when I was growing up. I was a sensitive, bookish (and let’s be honest, dorky) kid who didn’t care about sports and who was never very popular at school. Not many people wanted to be my friend. In contrast, the popular kids were all cool and athletic and good-looking and well-dressed, and everyone wanted to be their friend. I mostly got bullied instead – often by some of those very same popular kids.
So by the time I went off to college, I had learned to be leery of people who seemed really popular and charismatic and cool. Even if I didn’t expect them to full on bully me or make fun of me or whatever, I still tended to keep my distance. I felt certain they’d take one look at me and see the word “LOSER” stamped across my forehead, and then want nothing to do with me.
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So knowing that that was my state of mind, you can imagine my surprise when I started in college and this little group of four other freshman girls kind of latched onto me and firmly decided that I was their friend. (To this day, I’m still not completely sure why.) All four of them were pretty and petite and blonde(-ish) and well-dressed; all of them were trying out for the school dance team and deciding which sororities they wanted to join. And they were so invested in our little group of five that they even decided we needed a name for ourselves. So they came up with a cutesy little acronym and dubbed our group the “SMASH club” – SMASH for our first initials: Sara, Melissa, Amanda, Susan, and Heather.
I hardly knew what to make of this unexpected development in my social life (or the development that I now had a social life!). I was not remotely petite or blonde or particularly well-dressed. I was an awkward, very plus-sized nerd with long, greasy dark hair, who dressed mainly in oversized sweaters and baggy jeans and rarely left the basement of the music building. To me, these girls seemed exactly like the sort of popular kids that I had grown up with. In fact, I often quipped that they insisted on including me in the SMASH club only because they needed a vowel. (lol)
But it didn’t matter to them how much I protested; these four girls were not deterred from building up this friendship. They kept seeking me out, kept inviting me, kept including me. They called me after classes. They invited me to study together. They always saved a seat for me in the cafeteria. They got mad when I didn’t show up for stuff – because I was hesitant at first to participate, to come along. I kept waiting for the catch, certain that there must be some kind of ulterior motive behind all this. But through their sheer persistence, I slowly learned to trust that this really was friendship and care that I could rely on.
This is the same kind of persistence and care that I see in our reading for today from the gospel of Mark. Jesus is up in Capernaum and hoofing it all over Galilee, preaching and healing and teaching everywhere he goes. He goes to the synagogue in Capernaum on the sabbath day to preach and wows everyone with his wisdom and authority. He casts out an unclean spirit from a man there, and then as soon as he leaves the synagogue, he heads straight for Simon and Andrew’s house to heal Simon’s mother-in-law. The word spreads quickly about this teacher and healer, and by the end of the day, the entire city is gathered around the door, bringing everyone who is sick or suffering to be healed by Jesus.
And Jesus is all about it. The next morning, he takes a quick moment by himself to go off and pray. His disciples come and find him and tell him, “Hey, uh, everyone is looking for you.” And in response, rather than being annoyed, Jesus is like, “Rad. Let’s do this. I’ve healed and preached it all up in this town. Time to take this show on the road! Let’s go out and do the same in all the neighboring towns, because this is exactly what I came out here to do.” Jesus isn’t out here just to be a pretty face. And he’s not here to heal just one people or a handful of people. Jesus is here for everybody. And, indeed, Mark tells us that he goes “all throughout Galilee,” preaching and healing and casting out demons everywhere he goes.
Near the end of our reading, Jesus has an encounter that I find particularly moving. A man with a skin disease comes to Jesus on his knees, begging him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus is moved with pity; he stretches out his hand, touches the man, and says to him, “I am willing. Be made clean!” Judging by the desperation I hear in this man’s plea for healing, I would guess that he’s probably been suffering with this skin disease for quite a long time. So just imagine for a moment how powerful – how electric – it must have been for this man to have another person willingly touch him! Imagine how long it must have been since he last felt the caring touch of another person.
And it gets even more powerful when you dig a little bit into the language. Our translation uses the word “willing.” But other translations stick a little bit closer to the connotations of the original Greek and instead use the word “want.” The man says to Jesus, “Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean.” And in response, Jesus says, “I want to. Be made clean.” This one word doesn’t really change the meaning of the verse. But I hear this phrasing with the ears of that fearful girl who wasn’t so sure about being part of this “SMASH club” – and for me, it takes on a whole different flavor. Jesus isn’t just willing to heal this man – like, “Sure, whatever, might as well do that as long as I’m here.” Jesus says, “Yes. I *want* to heal you. It is literally the whole reason I came here.” Jesus doesn’t just show this man compassion and healing. He deliberately comes to him with love.
It’s interesting that we read this text today. Today is the first Sunday after Epiphany (which was yesterday), and traditionally in the liturgical calendar, this is the Sunday that we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord. And you may have noticed that there’s one key thing that is noticeably absent from our reading: baptism! But despite this fact, there actually are some significant connections between this text and the sacrament of baptism, especially when you read it from a Lutheran perspective.
When Lutherans talk about the sacraments – which for us are baptism and communion – we talk about God coming to us. This is distinct from other flavors of Christianity that talk about needing us to come to God or about “accepting Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior.” We don’t typically talk like that, because for Lutherans, grace is absolutely central. We recognize that although we can do good things, we can never do enough to earn our salvation or justification. Instead, it is God’s actions through the sacraments that have power, not ours. It is God who comes to us, God who seeks us out and claims us in love, God who washes us, who feeds us, who heals us and brings us to life.
For Luther, this understanding of the sacraments was absolutely transformational. Kind of like I did in college, Luther really struggled with a deep sense of unworthiness and shame. It was powerful and liberating for him to realize that we don’t have to earn our salvation and redemption – that they are free gifts given to us through the grace and love of God. God in Christ willingly does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
God loves each and every one of us with that same eager, compassionate, healing love that Jesus shows the people of Galilee in our reading. Christ still seeks us out to claim us as his own – not just once in our baptism, but daily in our lives. He comes to meet us every time we gather here around the sacraments – cleansing us once more through the waters of our baptism, strengthening us in body and soul as we gather once more around this table.
So I invite you to feel yourself lifted this day from whatever feelings of shame or unworthiness might be holding you back, for you have been redeemed. Feel your heart liberated from the sin and sickness that have so long weighed it down. Open yourself to trust in the love and compassion of Christ that are for you – for he has come here to meet you once again – just exactly as you are.
This is the Day 
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