8.13.23 'With Jesus in the Jordan!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Genesis 17.9-13; Acts 2.37-42

Everett Thomas Burton … is he the one?

Will he be anointed of God for some special task, some great purpose, something to change the world for good, and bless the world with peace?

Every parent dreams great things for their children, and so does God.

“This is my Father’s world,” as the hymn puts it … from the first light of creation to the very end of time, God at work, in all things, for good …

At the heart of it all, some very simple things:

People have children … there are families … and friends … uncles and aunts, grammas and grampa, networks of love … and next door neighbors … the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.

All of this, like apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese, is the story of life … and in the center of the story, God … 

though we don’t always see God … 

God is too good to be the star of the moment … 

God works anonymously, quietly, in all the apple-pie moments of life.

Everett Thomas Burton … is he the one?

God called Sarah and Abraham to the high task of being the parents of a new nation, a new element in the life of the world, a people who would pay attention to the things of God.

But what a work it would be … to the end of time.

God plays the long game … not just a few days, or a few years … not just a lifetime or two, or three … but centuries, millennia, tens of thousands of years, billions of years … the long game … and here we are, just like Abraham and Sarah … and all the rest of God’s people throughout the ages … in this moment of time, for these few moments, the curtain is pulled back a bit … and what we see is the love of God, in the love of family, in the gift of a child.

God gave to Sarah and Abraham a remarkable promise, the covenant …I belong to you, says God, and you belong to me … you AND your children, and your children’s children, and together, in spite of it all, we’ll make this a better world.

The mark of the covenant, circumcision … a rite performed on the male child, on the 8th day … the start of a new week, the beginning of new chapter.

Circumcision, the cutting off of the foreskin … the shedding of blood … 

With this mark in the flesh, the male child of the Hebrews belongs to God’s work of redemption … God at work, in the most intimate parts of the body, in the passion of procreation, through all the apple-pie moments of life … family and friends, food and fellowship, faith, hope, and love.

When Jesus is born, he, too, is circumcised on the 8th day … he, too, is one of the people … and, as it turns out, he IS the Anointed One!

At the start of his ministry, Jesus wades into the Jordan with John the Baptist, in the south of Palestine, near the Dead Sea … the very place where the people crossed over into the Promised Land after 40 years of wilderness-wandering. 

In this very place, this Borderland, between the past and the future, between the material and the spiritual, between death and life, between God and humanity … in the Jordan River, Jesus is baptized … 

He is one us, and we’re one with him … 

we belong to the Jordan River … 

we belong to John the Baptist …

we stand with Jesus in the River … 

we and our children, and so we bring a child to the church, to be baptized.

In the early days of the church, when the church was growing, and many were coming to believe Jesus to be the Anointed One … they asked, what all adults ask, What about our children? Are they a part of this great work? Do they, too, belong to God?

The answer was clear: of course they do. 

The church looked to the ancient rite of circumcision … the mark of the covenant.

God’s purpose has always included the children.

And now with Jesus,  some wonderful changes …

First of all, no more blood to be shed. 

In the ancient rite, the blood shed in the moment of cutting pointed to the cost; there is always sacrifice involved in the really important things of life. 

But now, in baptism, it’s the blood of Jesus, once, and for all … the blood of circumcision is now the water of the Jordan … 

water to wash away the sins of the world because Christ shed his blood on Calvary’s Cross … 

In baptism, we point to the future, a future grounded in what happened on the Cross … 

in the gift given by the Son of God … 

his blood, the final promise, the future opened up … 

rough places smoothed out, valleys filled in, high places brought down … the road ahead, a little straighter, because of Jesus and the Cross.

With the water, came a new element, the inclusion of girls … girls, too, were baptized … anyone who professed faith in Jesus was baptized … they AND their children, they and their families … because God plays the long game,

Everett Thomas Burton … is he the one?

It remains to be seen how it’ll all play out … but in this moment, we have the Jordan River and the promise of Jesus, to be one with us, that we might be one with God.

The promise to us, and to our children, God at work in all things for good …  

We have our work cut out for us, too … and most of it is challenging, most of it demanding, as we strive, with all our might, to be “thoroughly Christian,” to be followers of Jesus, faithful to his work, faithful to one another.  

The details of God’s work are not always clear … but this much I know, God’s love for all of us is absolute … God’s love for us is permanent, without change, in this life, and in the life to come; in all the apple-pie moments of life, joy and sorrow, the best of it, and the worst of it, from the beginning to the end, and beyond … God at work in the tides and turns of life.

Everett Thomas Burton - you are a part of God’s promise for the future. We promise to give you a story … we’ll tell you the stories of God, the stories of Moses and Miriam, Abraham and Sarah,  David and Goliath, Jesus and John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul and Lydia, even as you, Everett Thomas Burton, give us a future … that long after we’re gone, the good work of God goes on … the ceaseless love of God, at work, in all the apple-pie moments of life …

Everett Thomas Burton, you are the one … you - a child of God.

Amen and Amen!

March 2 7, 2022, "Get Set" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena

Joshua 5.9-12; 2 Corinthians 5.16-21

On your mark.

Get set.

Go!

That’s how the race begins … 

We are the people … these are the times. 

It’s our race … our moment … no one else to run the race for us … others have run their race long before we born, and to all of them, a debt of gratitude.

From the vast beyond, they say to us:

Thank you; thank you for your gratitude; we’re glad you recognize what we did. 

We built something with stone and steel; we built it by the Spirit of God … we didn’t give up, we didn’t give in … by the mercies of God, and for the love of Christ, we raised this Tower to the glory of God - a beacon of love and hope.

We did it for you.

We did it for the world.

We appreciate your gratitude, but we want something more.

We want you to run your own race.

That’s the best gift you can to us. 

Gratitude, for sure, then your gumption.

Your determination - to run the race as well as you can.

Here we are dear friends.

We’re on the mark.

And now the announcement: “Get set!” …  

In our prayers and with our devotion.

In our meetings together and our plans.

In the strength of our bodies, as best we can.

And if the body isn’t what it used to be, then the courage of our soul. 

No greater tower can be crafted, than the tower of prayer.

From God’s call to Abraham and Sarah to the final trumpet of the Book of Revelation.

The race is set.

Always forward, always something new … not forgetting the past, but building upon it … denying the temptation to recreate the past, bring the past back - like Lot’s wife, who turned around to see from whence they had come; she turned into a pillar of salt. 

Nothing wrong with salt, but a pillar of salt ain’t going anywhere. 

It’s stuck in place and stuck in time. 

The challenge any of us face, when times are changing, when one era is ending, to know how to say “Farewell!”

“Farewell!” to what was, and welcome the new.

Even when we haven’t a clue what the new will be like, or where it’ll take us.

In our reading from Joshua:

The people are now, finally, in the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering in the Wilderness.

Moses did his work.

Moses confronted Pharaoh and demanded the release of his people.

Pharaoh said Yes, and then Pharaoh said No.

There was the crossing of the Sea, just in the nick of time.

Pharaoh and his army are washed away.

The people march through the sea - safe and sound.

A pillar of cloud to guide them during the day … a pillar of fire to give them light at night. Manna in the morning, and water from a rock.

Moses on the Mountain … Moses and the Ten Commandments. 

But when faced with the Promised Land, they fail to take it.

They’re afraid … Maybe we should go back to Egypt. It wasn’t so bad after all.”

The lure of the past.

The troubling trick of the mind -  when we trick ourselves about the past … we remember the best of it, and not all of it … “if only we could regain the past,” we think, “then we’d be happy.”

Churches succumb to this troubling trick of the mind … so do political parties, and entire nations, and folks just like you and me - when the past lays hold of the mind and imagination, it leaves no room for innovation, experimentation; fear takes over and the future dies.

That’s what happened to Israel, as they stood on the threshold of the Promised Land, the first time around. Their spies came back and said: There are giants in the land, and we can’t fight them. In their eyes, we’re as small as grasshoppers.

It was all “fake news” - the people rose up in anger at Moses and Aaron … better dead instead, they cried. Why is God doing this to us? Let us choose a captain who will take us back to Egypt.

So off to the Wilderness God sent them; forty years of wandering, until they could shake off yesterday's dust, set aside inaccurate memories, reject fake news, trust the LORD God Almighty, and get ready to try it again.

In our reading today, Joshua 5 - the second time around …  they crossed the Jordan, set up camp, just shy of Jericho. 

Joshua said: We’ve got some prep-work to do. Here and now. To get ready for the Promised Land.

Circumcision for one … the cut of the flesh to mark the body. To God we belong, in life and in death … God’s purpose is our pursuit.

The Lords says, “Today, I’ve rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” The past is past … this is now … tomorrow stands before us.

And then the Passover Feast - to remember when the Angel of Death came to do its hard and terrible work - taking the first-born of all living things … but the Angel of Death passed over the homes marked with the blood of a lamb.

It’s a harsh and terrible business sometimes … 

To set the captives free.

To right the wrongs.

And clear the way.

To see a brand new day.

That day, the Children of Israel ate the produce of the land.

The manna was no more.

Forty years of wandering - behind them.

Ahead of them, the Promised Land.

Centuries later, the Apostle Paul says to his friends: If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away … everything has become new!

Paul says: in Christ, God was reconciling the world to God, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ.

The high and holy calling of God.

The past is behind us. The race is before us.

On your mark!

Get set!

Amen and Amen!