Worship the Lord With Gladness

"Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness, come into his presence with singing . . .For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. " --Psalm 100:1,2,5

"Christian worship is the glad response of total individuals--through heart, soul, strength,and mind--to the saving acts of God in history. It is the communal and personal celebration in the universal church of God's love for creation and for every human being. This divine love is revealed in God's gracious covenant with the people of Israel and in God's coming into the world in Jesus Christ.
Christian worship is more than a passive response of God's revelation. It is in itself a Pentecostal proclamation. It both announces the good news of God's love for all the world and invites all people to share in God's saving embrace. This active response would not be possible without the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who endows the community of faith and individual Christains with the gifts that are necessary for God's service. All that Christians do, together and individually, is worship, liturgy, the work of praise and thanksgiving. The word and acts commonly called worship cannot be separated from Christians' faithful response to God in words and acts of love and justice for all people. This is the transparent meaning of Jesus' liberating command: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Named, Loved, Sent

"And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit of God descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from the heavens, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." --Mark 1:10-11

We began our first Confirmation class gathering around the baptismal font, dipping our hands in the water and thinking about the meaning of our own baptisms. We considered the rich imagery of water--that which sustains life; that cleanses; a gift from heaven; an abundant flow in which we can be immersed.

None of us in this class, including the pastor, can remember our own baptism celebrations clearly as we are were too young. We know that we were baptized into the community of the followers of Jesus, the church. God's loving claim on our lives was announced and celebrated, even before we could realize it. God's grace and forgiveness were affirmed as promises. The movement of God's Holy Spirit was recognized among us. We were immersed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ! Awesome indeed!

Our parents, and the community, made promises to God and to us: to nurture us in the Christian faith, in the ways of Jesus; to be our faithful models; to accompany us to the time and place in our lives where we would make a decision to follow Jesus for ourselves. In our church, we call this time "Confirmation."

Jesus was somewhere around thirty years old when he was baptized. In the years since his birth, he had lived for the most part in the Galilean town of Nazareth, in the north of Israel, as the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary. Apparently he also worked as a carpenter in that region, until the day he left and travelled to a place miles away, in the south, on the banks of the Jordan River. There, God's prophet, John, was baptizing people in the river, a kind of "washing off" of their sins, telling them to get ready for the coming of the God's Promised One.

In the gospel story, Jesus leaves life as he has lived it in Nazareth to join God's people in the water, and at a deeper level, to join us in the midst of our lives.

He is baptized by being immersed in the river. As he comes up out of the water, he sees "the heavens torn apart," or said another way, "the sky split open." And a voice comes from the heavens: "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

The image of "the sky split open" is a way of saying that, through the life of Jesus God's children will never, never be separated from the love of God, for any reason, no matter what. And in addition to the name he was given at birth, Jesus, he receives three new names from God: Son, Beloved ("Loved One"), and God's Pleasure.

Jesus returns to familiar places, but not to life as he had lived it before. His ministry, his deeper purpose, had begun.

How do you think that Jesus' baptism and your baptism are joined together?

Imagine God not only calling you Erin, Nik, Max, and Austin. Imagine God calling you "Child of God;" "Deeply Loved One;" "God's Pleasure." What might that mean?