March 2020

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 2:5

Dear Redeemer Family:

It is to the above text, for this Passion Sunday, a vision of disciples remade in the mind of Christ, that all of Lent builds. The season of baptismal preparation provides a rich palette of biblical texts in which the people of God both strive and fail to live faithfully into the mind of Christ. The grace of God provides a never-ending spring of encouragement. From the contrasting prayers of the hypocrites and those who pray in secret, through the amazing but flawed faithfulness of Abraham and Sarah, to the over-enthusiastic woman at the well and the reticent parents of the one given sight, we see Sunday by Sunday just how complicated and difficult it is to cultivate and live into the sacrificial, servant mind of Christ. Like a steady drumbeat, Romans provides a solid theological commentary on abundant human sin and abundant God given grace throughout the season.

At the same time, one need not scratch too deeply beneath the surface of these lessons of baptismal preparation to find the living waters. In these forty days of dry bones and lack of vision, God points us toward the paschal mystery on the horizon and the saving waters that await our renewal. Gracious encouragement abounds. Through the God who so loved that world that the self-emptying Son has given, our hope is encouraged in the living waters of a Samaritan well, in the water flowing from the rock, in the horn of oil and the mighty outpouring of the Spirit, in mud and washing.

Through a sublime and tightly woven symphony of stories across this season of Lent, we see God’s ancient people mirroring our own lives: the equivocation of Adam and Eve, laid against the faithfully following Abraham. Nicodemus comes with bold questions to Jesus but only under the cover and safety of darkness. The Bethany sisters both accuse and confess. In all their complexity, these characters despair and hope, work and wonder, live and die as we ourselves do. And our only real hope is every bit as complex and mysterious: the waters of baptism toward which the Church of the self-emptying Christ moves. They are waters of death, then life; of dying, then rising. Of sin swallowed up, then life given and renewed.

The Season of Lent is truly a season of textual complexity, mystery and beauty. Enjoy it this year.

In Christ,

Pastor Rose

January 2018

“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” Mark 1:9-11

 

Dear Redeemer Family:

When most of you receive this, we will be well into the middle of the Season of Christmas. You know the carol? The Twelve Days of Christmas? It is a short season, and its purpose really is to prepare us for what is coming next, Epiphany, God’s light breaking into the world. Epiphany begins, in the lessons, with the arrival of the three magi. It takes place on January 6th, thirteen days after Christmas. It is then, that I like to tell people, that they may open their Christmas presents. Remember, it is the magi who bring the gifts. For some reason, children don’t usually like that waiting for the magi to arrive. What is really important about the Day of Epiphany is that illuminated in the gospel lesson of the day, God’s promise shines bright in the night as magi follow a star to honor a new king. Strangers from a faraway land, they welcome the long-awaited Messiah of Israel.

 

The time after Epiphany is really an extended invitation of Baptism. And it is kind of filled with ironies. Mark’s gospel reports the story of Jesus’ baptism with some irony: the one on whom the Spirit descends is himself the one who will baptize others with the Holy Spirit. Think about it! John the Baptist doesn’t want to baptize Jesus. Rather he thinks that Jesus should be baptizing him! Again, think about it. The words that we hear coming from heaven at Jesus’ baptism are repeated again, at His Transfiguration at the end of the Season of Epiphany. Again, something to think about!

 

This theme of an invitation runs really through the whole time of Epiphany. In the Gospel lessons of this time, Jesus goes out and calls His disciples with the words, “Follow me,” an invitation. Philip will invite Nathanael to meet Jesus with, “come and see,” an invitation.

 

The themes of Epiphany encourages all disciples, that includes us, to go fishing for people, to have intentional conversations with others inside and outside of the Church about their faith, and to invite those who have not yet been baptized to “come and see” what these waters are all about. The waters of baptism tell the truth, that we live in a world of competing values and conflicting loyalties. To follow Jesus is to turn away from other ways of living and being in the world. This is highlighted in the Baptismal Rite itself in the structure of the renunciations and the profession of faith. “Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God? Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God? Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?” And then, we proclaim our faith in the Baptismal Creed, the Apostles’. “We believe in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.” This too is an invitation for all now to “Come and see.”

 

In Christ,

Pastor Rose