Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached two Sundays ago, 1/10/16 at St.Timothy http://www.sttimothybemus.com/Church/Home.html and St. Mark Lutheran Churches . The scripture text is Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 . We celebrated the Baptism of Our Lord.  Today we celebrate the baptism of Our Lord Jesus. In Luke's gospel, the actual baptism itself is rather downplayed. Greater emphasis is placed on the events that took place surrounding Jesus' baptism. The purpose of this passage is to introduce and begin to answer the question of Jesus' identity and mission as well as to highlight the work of the Holy Spirit in anointing people for ministry. The passage itself is presented to us as a revelatory drama of Jesus' post baptismal experience. This drama consists of three parts: the heavens are opened, the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus and there is a voice from heaven. In part 1 of our drama-the heavens are opened. Here Luke repeats end time imagery about the coming of the Messia

It has been an amazing day of ministry. Today we celebrate the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. This morning we had a great service, then I spent time with the confirmation class training them to be acolytes, communion assistants and lectors. But I think the highlight of my day came this afternoon when a group of us went to a nearby nursing home for a service of holy communion. Most of the residents were very engaged in the singing, prayer and communion. One of them didn't want to let go of my hand when we were singing. What really topped it all off for me though was when I communed another woman. When I said, "The body and blood of Christ given and shed for you" (I intincted the commununion host for the residents), she said "...and you!" We both said "Amen!" It was just an amazing connection that we had. The homily I shared with them was a shortened version of the sermon I preached at Bethel . The gospel text was Luke 3:15-17, 21-22. Here is my

Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Why was I born? These are age-old questions that most of us have entertained at one time or another. Identity is something many of us may have struggled with. We may look for it in our work, in our position in our family, in how well we’ve done financially, how well others accept us. Who am I? Identity is an issue that comes out in today’s gospel reading as well.             John knew who Jesus was, didn’t he? Earlier in this chapter of Matthew’s gospel, John proclaimed the difference between his baptism and the one which was to come, which the messiah would bring. Then Jesus arrives on the scene to be baptized. In baptism, normally it was the greater who baptized the lesser. This is why John tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized by him stating that rather Jesus should baptize him! John knew who he was and thought he knew who Jesus was, so why should John baptize Jesus?             Our English translation that John “would have prevented h