it's all i can do to get out of here alive

after all the hell i've been through

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew the 3rd chapter!

"I am a child of God."

How's that exercise going for you?

 

Before we talk more about how we're doing, I'd like to tell you a quick story...

Many of you know I didn't grow up Lutheran. Now, as I wasn't a life-long Lutheran I wasn't baptized until later. I was still, however, a child when I was baptized. I feel like I have some memories of that day; considering I couldn't have been more than seven-years-old, though, it's unlikely...

Now, the reason I wasn't baptized as an infant, but was still baptized young is because of my grandmother; bless her heart.

 

You see, when I was born, my folks weren't going to church much.

And when Cody, my younger brother, was born my folks still weren't going to church much...

Once there were two of us, though, my grandmother just couldn't take it anymore; it was right time us boys got baptized.

I wasn't there for the conversation, but my mom told me about it.

My grandmother insisted we get baptized,

not to get my folks attending church regularly,

not even to get Cody and I to church more often...

No, the reason the two of us should "take the plunge," as it were, was pretty simple:

'what if, and heaven-forbid, but what if something should happen to us.'

Apparently my grandmother figured it would be a good idea for us to hedge our bets, to cover our bases, to get some fire-insurance...

For my grandmother baptism was little more than a way to sneak a couple of kids through the pearly-gates, I mean heaven-forbid, something should happen.

The truth, though, is that I love my grandmother for insisting Cody and I get dunked;

and, I love my folks for acquiescing too...

The reason I love them for their insistence and capitulation is because of the kind of world we all have to live in day-in and day-out...

You all know what this world is like; this world that confronts us with plenty to fear,

with enough embarrassment for at least a few lifetimes,

with our failures,

with more than enough broken relationships, broken dreams;

and much more than plenty to break our fragile hearts;

in other words, we live in a world filled with brokenness,

and that brokenness is always threatening to tear what semblance of life we've managed to hold together...

 

See, daily I'm thankful for whatever carried me to that baptismal font because of the kind of world that forces me, that forces us all to come face to face with brokenness daily.

That's the truth.

Just making it through the day on a good one is a struggle at best;

and often it seems the most we can hope for is simply to make it to our bed in the evening still in a single piece...

Now, seeing as we're all in this together; I hope you all too, at least, have heard the story of your baptism; what the day was like, what church it was at, whether you slept or cried; that kind of thing...

I hope the story of your baptism is a story you are at least acquainted with; because the kind of world we have to live in is the kind of one that when we try to find a little blessed rest, will raise deep and dark questions when those dreams won't come...

Like the clouds that infiltrate during the night, before we know it, questions pondering whether there is anything strong enough to wash away those failures, fears, fatigue, sorrows, embarrassment, broken hearts, broken dreams, broken relationships have pounced upon us...

In other words, questions that beg the question:

'what's a promise capable of,

or what's a promise really worth,'

These are the really big questions this broken world thrusts upon meager humans such as you and I,

and these are the questions we're going to have to, one way or another, come up with an answer to when the sleep won't come, when the brokenness becomes to big to ignore.

These questions of what can survive this brokenness are the questions this broken would forces us to try and come up with an answer;

but, frankly, these are questions that, if we're forced find answer on our own were doomed to be unable to reply to at all...

In the face of this incredible brokenness, and our own culpability, we're forced into silence, resignation.

That story about my baptism;

when I can, I try to tell parents before they baptize their kiddos.

I tell them this story because, here's the kicker; I was baptized in a Lutheran Church.

Now when Cody and I were baptized, my folks had little intention to take us to church, and no intention whatsoever to take us to a Lutheran church, that was just the church willing to do the baptisms.

In fact, I doubt I set foot in a Lutheran church again until I ended up, randomly, at a Lutheran college...

Here's the thing, though; when that water mingled with the Word, with God's promise, was poured over me; something happened...

At that baptismal font, something happened that was bigger than my grandmother's fear of hell,

at that font something happened that was bigger than my folks' avoiding an argument,

at that baptism something happened that was bigger than my whole life,

and in that small country church, something happened that was even bigger than all the doubts, bigger than all this brokenness we live with day-in and day-out...

When that water mixed with God's Word was poured over me, God gave a promise than would not, that could not be broken, even as all else falls apart;

and that promise, in its own way, brought me here; in a Lutheran church again, serving as a Lutheran pastor.

See, when we bring a child to the baptismal font, oh-so-casually, we're really playing with TNT,

we're playing with the most fantastic promises you can make to a person,

and we're all making promises before God and that child,

but more importantly, God is making promises before us and to that child...

 

We're having a sermon-series on the incarnation, a sermon series on the God who takes on bones and flesh.

 

Truthfully, at the end of the day, that kind of thing, the incarnation, may seem like an idea that has little bearing on our lives in this broken world;

the incarnation may seem as an idea that doesn't make a tiddles-worth of difference in the kind of world we have to go out and just try our best to survive day-in and day-out...

As we stated earlier, this life is no easy thing to get through, let alone endure.

 

Faced with this bleak and broken world, the thinking goes;

if we're going to make it, we need something more abrasive than all those shards of brokenness this life thrusts upon us...

The truth, though, is that this claim; that God became a human,

just like you and me;

small and vulnerable as it may seem,

is really the only thing that can make a difference in this world;

in fact, it, the incarnation, makes all the difference in this world of brokenness...

See, at the end of the day, the question we're all going to have to come up with is an answer to is,

'what is stronger than all this brokenness,

what can mend all that has been rent asunder by this broken world,

what is sure in this world that is all too prone to fall apart...'

The answer to those terrible questions, despite what we would expect, has only one reply; love.

 

While we might like to imagine what we need in this world is something abrasive enough to demolish those broken shards into sand;

what God reveals in this incarnation, though, is that the only thing that can fix this brokenness is the one who is gentle enough to be willing to be hurt by those shards, and by honoring -by dwelling amongst that brokenness- paradoxically healing it...

 

After all, did you notice how John protested at first when Jesus came to him to be baptized?

The terrible truth is, John was right!

 

John said himself, he isn't worthy to even untie Jesus shoes before he takes them off.

Not only that, though, Jesus is God;

so what is this God-in-bones-and-flesh doing being washed?

Surely God was already pure!?!

Right here in this scandal of God's baptism, is the revelation of why the incarnation matters for this broken world we find ourselves in;

in God's baptism, in the incarnation, we see the insistence that God doesn't give a fig about being pure, holy and all that.

No; what God is concerned with is folks like us; folks who have to try and navigate this broken world,

folks who carry our own scars from being cut by the jagged edges of this broken world...

What the incarnation insists is that God is so concerned, you could even say obsessed with people who have to do their best to simply survive this broken world,

that God would enter our terrible existence fully.

You want to know what the real miracle of Jesus' baptism was,

it wasn't the dove or God's voice booming from a cloud;

no, it was Jesus, God in bones-and-flesh, dealing with the very-same brokenness we find ourselves amidst,

and by his presence sanctifying it.

In Jesus' baptism, we find God wading into the very-same swampy waters we've all tried to escape from,

in Jesus' baptism we find God being held by the very-same kind of pastor wrestling with their own doubts that we've been washed by;

and so what we hear in this baptism is a promise from the only one who's done all diligence to make such a promise,

what we hear in this baptism is a promise from the only one who can offer this promise that deserves our trust in this world that is so likely to break...

 

Here's what matters about the incarnation:

Jesus; God in the flesh; calls righteousness at his baptism is not humans who are perfected beyond their humanity;

but rather a God who comes to our broken humanity, who comes to the broken world we're stuck in

and by his presence hallows, heals and restores.

Martin Luther once said that he had held many things in his hands but he had lost them all; whatever he had placed in God’s hands, though, that he never lost.

That’s wisdom, that’s experience speaking.

So, how's the exercise of repeating, "I am a child of God" each day going?

My suspicion is that it's hard;

that it feels awkward at best...

See, this life that we must survive, all too often tends to cut away any semblance of humanity, of vulnerability with those jagged edges of brokenness.

In fact, in this world I fear that people are being dehumanized more and more until all we are is simply our contribution to the economy.
And that’s terrible, because you’re not a piece of a machine; you’re a child of God.

See what God does is redeems this broken world,

hallows, heals and restores it,

restores our brokenness.

 

Here is what the incarnation reveals at baptism:

If you want to know what is strong enough to heal all that's broken;

look here;

look here to the God who doesn't despise our world,

but the God who comes to it,

to the God who heals it,

who redeems it.

The incarnation matters because the only kind of God who can make a promise in this world filled with brokenness,

is a God who enters this world, who knows it brokenness.

Here's why the incarnation matters; because in Jesus' baptism, you're allowed a window into your own baptism, whether you can remember it or not,

into all of our baptisms;

at your baptism the God who comes to this world comes to lowly and broken folks like us and declares:

you're mine, you’re  beloved.

 

I want you to end this sermon with me,

I'd like you to say six simple words that makes the devil shudder,

I'd like you to say six simple words that are stronger than anything that you've broken or threats to break you;

"I am a child of God,"

Say it with me, "I am a child of God."

Yes you are, you ARE a child of God.

Amen