Storms Happen

Baptism AGAIN?

“Lord, we ask you to bless us during the holy season of Lent. Guide us as we carry out our Lenten disciplines, and give us your support as we try to keep our resolutions. By your Holy Spirit, show us what sins we need to confess, and what areas in our lives we need to confess, and what areas in our lives we need to bring before you in penitence, so that we can receive your healing forgiveness. Help us to keep a good and holy Lent, so that we may be your Easter people and show our risen Lord in everything we do and say, and in the way we love and serve others.” (p191 Expository Times, Jan 2015)

Why was jesus baptized? Not to join the church because it did not yet exist. Not to be saved, for he was sinless. Was it for others to see and hear the favor of God the Father in the voice calling him beloved son, or the decent of the Spirit, or to stand in solidarity with those who repented and turned to God.

Genesis tells us about another story with water, this time a flood from which a few emerged as if saved from disaster. The Noah story is a lesson for us about trusting God, believing God, having faith in God.

In Peter’s letter, Noah is a reference point: God waited patiently for his people to obey him. He continued to wait even while the ark was being made, but his neighbors thought his actions a bit odd and ignored the prophetic nature of them. So in the story only the faithful are saved from the natural disaster.

What that meant for Noah, his wife, sons, and their wives is an interesting study in its own right. Being among the “faithful who were saved” they began life again, but they very quickly began to have good ideas of their own, rather than listen to God’s direction.

Jesus goes into the wilderness and faces temptations, a forty day fast,  and this answer in each temptation is a citation of scripture: stand fast on the word it seems to say.

Lent is a good time to take in the historical panorama of our faith – our traditions – prophetic imagination – and biblical literacy. God promised Noah to never again destroy the people of earth with water. We are part of the covenant with Noah.

How encouraged we could be if we just believed God’s promise of faithfulness, rather than be riddled by fear of the next viral pandemic, the next terrorist attack, or the next financial downturn. In baptism we are saved from fear and disaster by pledging our consciences to God and appealing to his resurrection power to govern all things.

Can we in response pledge our faithfulness?