Yoked to Christ

We celebrate the baptism of Lorraine Floyd today. She’s a beautiful girl blessed with a loving family. One of the things Meg and I learned as young parents is that infants are never wrong for the first three months.  They are rested or tired, clean or need a change, fed or hungry. And they will let you know. But of course their worlds quickly change.  Lorraine is almost a year old. Her perception of the world has changed dramatically in the almost two months since we originally planned to baptize her on Mother’s Day. She met her twin cousins who are just a bit older for the first time this week.

That makes me think of all the things you want to say to a baby as they are learning to hear, to understand speech and to engage their family and the world around them: Mommy loves you! Daddy loves you! Rock-a-bye-baby. And my personal favorite, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

If Lorraine decides to be a lawyer, she’ll go to college for four years. If she does well enough, she’d go to law school for three more. If she does well at that, she’ll have to pass the bar exam. Once she passes that, she can be licensed, and then she would become a new, young attorney. She will be very green, inexperienced, and she would embark upon a lifetime of learning how to find, apply and argue the law. There is literally no end of it – federal, state, local laws and ordinances, regulations that carry the force of law. And they are always changing either by legislation or precedents set in court.

It’s tough, challenging and endlessly thick and complex – and that’s for the lawyers. If Lorraine becomes a teacher or a doctor or opens her own business and she runs into the law or has need of the law for whatever reasons, it’s impossible for us to manage it. When most of us do, even for something as simple as buying a house, we’re going to look for the best lawyer we can get.

In today’s passage from Romans (7:15-25), Paul reminds us that the practical application of our faith is hard. Even when we apply the simple core foundational precepts of our faith to the incidents and accidents of each of our lives, we face an unending complexity in how our faith must be lived.  That complexity can rest in everything from the ways we decide to worship to the ways we decide to act – or not act – in every situation. Life is infinitely complex. We are always torn between our natural instincts and staying yoked to Christ within ourselves. That’s just for individuals. It gets more complex with our families and communities.

Imagine for a moment if you stood accused and, if guilty, you would be condemned.

And that’s when we are earnestly trying to do our best, which we mostly do; mostly, but not always. We stand convicted.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

A yoke is put on oxen. If you were yoked to an ox, you would not have to do the heavy lifting, but you would go wherever that ox goes. That’s a distant analogy. I look at Lorraine, Rainy as her family calls her. She has infinite potential. She could become a lawyer. She could become anything. Her parents will raise her to meet that potential. They’ll support and encourage her education. She’ll learn to swim and to ride a bike. They’ll put her in various sports. (If her grandmother has anything to do with it, she will learn how to water ski.) Maybe she’ll learn an instrument, maybe a different language. Infinite potential.

She has a journey ahead that none of us can predict. Who knows what she will do. Who knows who she will meet or what global events may shake her world in 50 years. Along with her infinite potential she has infinite directions she could go. Life is an adventure.

And so what we think about God is important.  We don’t make this up from scratch. Our faith has been handed down and interpreted across centuries. The scriptures we’ve read this morning range from 2,000 to 2,500 years old. The collect we prayed this morning is 1,500 years old. Everything we pray and read and sing carries a great wealth of theological, moral and ethical discourse in the Church over the centuries. 

Yet, today, as in every age, there is a very persistent, loud and strident movement to tear us away from our roots. It’s everywhere. It crosses social and political lines and it’s instantly available – on our phones, many of your watches. Before long they’d like to put a chip in you, for your own good of course. I’m not kidding. Who at Google or Microsoft or Apple is controlling all of that? What direction do they lead, to God or their bank accounts?

Not Lorraine. Not any of the children we serve. Not any of the adults we serve. Not anyone we can reach. We are agents of helping them know Jesus and through him to know the Father.

Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

He’s not referring to actual children. He’s referring to the common people who don’t have the time or training to become experts in theology. Sure, we need preachers and teachers and books and hymns and songs to help us grow in faith. Faith seeks understanding and our studies are important. But the relationship is directly between each of us and him, and all of us and him.

Knowing him inoculates us from the myriad of falsehoods the world throws at us every day.  Knowing him inoculates us from being crushed by the chances and challenges of this life. Knowing him inoculates us from being crushed by the weight of our own sin – the things we don’t do that we should, the things that we do that we shouldn’t.

Knowing Jesus delivers us from evil of all kinds. That is the power of grace. That is the joy of being on his yoke.  We come back to His grace again and again and we find that his yoke is easy, his burden is light.

We stand convicted. We also stand redeemed.

For all eternity, the one thing Lorraine needs most is this life giving and life shaping relationship with Jesus Christ. We are bringing Lorraine into His fellowship, His household, the household of God, this morning. She will eventually take this relationship on for herself, just as she will every responsibility. Our hope is that she will grow up having always known Jesus, and we trust that He knows her and that He’s got her, forever. So let’s do this.

AMEN