Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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If you’ve moved here from a big city like Boston or New York, you know that life is different here than in the big city. But even life in a small town like Waterville is much different than life in a village, like Cana. In Waterville, it’s not uncommon to see people you know at the grocery store or the post office. But in a village, everyone knows everyone and everyone’s life is connected to everyone else’s life. When a baby is born, the whole village celebrates. When someone dies, the whole village mourns. When there’s a wedding, the whole village attends.

A typical Middle Eastern village wedding would take place in the cool of the evening. The bride and groom would wear crowns on their heads. After the ceremony, the couple would be led through the streets of the village with a canopy held over their heads, torches blazing, music playing and lots of singing and dancing. The parade would wind through every street in the village to bear witness to the whole community that the bride had a new name and out of two families, one new family had been created. The whole village looked forward to a wedding because it was a time of great celebration and joy for everyone.

It might have been just such a village wedding that the prophet Isaiah had in mind in our Old Testament reading for this morning. “For Zion’s sake I WILL NOT KEEP SILENT, and for Jerusalem’s sake I WILL NOT BE QUITE, until her righteousness goes forth AS BRIGHTNESS, and her salvation as a BURNING TORCH. The nations shall see your righteousness and all the kings your glory, and YOU SHALL BE CALLED BY A NEW NAME that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be A CROWN OF BEAUTY in the hand of the Lord, and a ROYAL DIADEM in the hand of your God.” It sure sounds like Isaiah is describing a typical village wedding where the Lord God is celebrating the joyous new life of a very special bride and groom. (more…)

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If I were to ask you to list the most significant events in the life of Jesus, you would probably list Christmas, Easter, Good Friday and His Ascension. You would probably not include His baptism on that list. But the Baptism of Jesus is an event in the life of Christ that deserves the same kind of attention and consideration as his birth, death, resurrection and ascension does. We really ought to celebrate Christ’s baptism more than we do. And here’s why.

On Christmas morning, when was born, He came into the world. On Good Friday, when He was crucified on the cross, He died for the sins of THE WORLD. On Easter Sunday, when He rose from the dead, He reconciled God to THE WORLD. Forty days after Easter, He ascended into heaven to intercede with the Father for the life of THE WORLD. You notice that in all of this, we haven’t once said, “FOR YOU.” It’s all very general and non-specific. And so we rightly wonder, ‘how does this apply TO ME?’ How does this connect TO ME? How is all that Jesus Christ has done, FOR ME? (more…)