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Sermon for April 27, 1997Pastor Gunnar L. Anderson"Look, Here Is Water"Text: Acts 8:26-40
Look, here is water!We will baptize today; a father and his son, on the same day! It is an exciting time around this old church, don't you think? Two weeks ago we received new members, and we will receive new members today by baptism and by the affirmation of baptism. And every time we receive new members, I conduct a new members class; a brush up for those who come to us from a Lutheran background and an introduction for those who don't. And one of the things I always teach is that worldwide the Lutheran Church is the third largest group of Christians in existence, next to Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. In this country the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the ELCA, is the fourth or fifth largest protestant denomination. We are over five million members strong! And I always tell new members that I like this; I like the clout; I like our church being big enough to make a difference! I look forward to the day that when news reporters need a religious comment, we will not only see Cardinal O'Conner on TV but our Bishop H. George Anderson! Well, this week I almost got my wish! Listening to WFAN, one of the most powerful, far-reaching, and most successful radio stations in this country; to the "Imus In the Morning" program syndicated on stations all across America, I heard Don Imus discussing this week's lead story: The great flood in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the raging Red River, a 500 year flood, they call it, because the area is not used to nor prepared for floods. Countless folks have evacuated, lost all, seen everything swept away. Over 90% of the people do not have flood insurance. The government is talking about the need for a World War II scale Marshall Plan to provide relief; and Imus asked over the air, as tens of millions of listeners heard, "How can I help?" Whereupon his newsman, Charles McCord, answered, "There is the Red Cross, and the Lutherans have a Domestic Disaster Response Line!" "Look, here is water!" You can contribute! You can help! The Lutherans, five million strong, can make a difference! You have the information and the address in your bulletin insert
Beloved, let us love one another,Now Philip seems to be conducting a new member class of his own this morning. Have you ever really paid attention to this story? It should be a stage play, not a written lesson: Philip is "touched by an angel" of the Lord who appears and tells him to quickly go to the Jerusalem-Gaza Road. There Philip finds an Ethiopian, the treasurer for his queen, who is galloping down the road in his horse drawn chariot; and you have to picture Philip running alongside this chariot, jogging like a secret service agent by the President's limousine. Philip is running along listening to the Ethiopian reading a passage from Isaiah, about the suffering servant: "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth." And unable to comprehend the scandal of such selflessness, the Ethiopian treasurer asks Philip:
'About whom, may I ask you, does theAnd in my new member classes, I teach about Jesus, too; and I teach about a great flood, of biblical proportion! For after creation, after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, after they had disobeyed God, they had to leave the Garden of Eden. So where once human beings were close to God in that garden, now there is separation between God and us. We call this separation SIN! Something has to happen to get us back together again, close to God. So God first decides on a flood, to wipe all away, to start over. But this doesn't work. We human beings remain as selfish and rebellious as ever. So God gives us ten commandments, saying, "I will be your God, you will be my people;" here's how, obey my law. But we can't. We continue to break God's law. So God sends prophets to say, "Repent, change your ways, return to the Lord your God." but we don't. So God finally understands that we humans will never be able to fix the problem of sin on our own. God says, I will have to fix the problem for them. So, though we are sinners, God chooses to love us anyway. I will send my own Son. He will die on a cross to atone for, to make up for their sin; to reconcile or make friends again; to redeem or to buy back, "not with silver or gold but with His holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death." Jesus will die on a cross to forgive our sin, so that we might once again be close to God, wrapped up in God's hug, his own loved and forgiven children. And all of that reality: the reality of Jesus, the meaning of the cross, all of that becomes part of who you are when you are baptized! Jesus speaks today, "I am the vine, you are the branches." And we are grafted into the vine of Christ when we are baptized. And says Jesus, "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples," but, he reminds us, every branch bears more fruit if it is pruned! Quoting from a gardening article, "The most important things to do for your grapes are the initial training and, after that, annual pruning. Grapes that are left untrained and unpruned turn into a mass of tangled vines that are mostly old and unproductive wood. You'll get a much better crop if you prune regularly," if you cut back, if you cut away the wild and withered growth! "I am the vine, you are the branches," says Jesus, and today we prune the branches. Today with Mark and Jason we remember our own baptism; and today with Tiffany and Mary we affirm our own baptism. Today we recommit to our promises to worship God, to hear God's words and share in the Lord's Supper as often as we can, to proclaim the good news of Christ, to love others, to seek justice and to serve all people! The Ethiopian treasurer couldn't comprehend the Suffering Servant, but each baptized Christian is marked with the cross of Christ; and the events overflowing the banks of the Red River remind us. "Pruning," in the Greek, is the same word as "cleansing." So every day a baptized Christian is pruned, for every day we are cleansed. We are washed clean. Our sin is forgotten so that every day becomes another chance to love God and love neighbor!
'Look, here is water!And the Ethiopian commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. And we will baptize today; a father and his son, on the same day. It is an exciting time! To be a loved and forgiven child of God and an "inheritor of eternal life," with every day a purposeful, meaningful new opportunity to love God and neighbor; why shouldn't we, with the Ethiopian, go "on our way rejoicing?" AMEN Copyright © 1997 Gunnar L. Anderson. All Rights Reserved.
Last modified 5/17/97 |
