While all four Gospels include Jesus being baptized by John, and the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove, only Matthew records this verbal exchange between John and Jesus. John’s question is a good one!

John’s whole life from conception on has been building to this moment. He’s kind of like a kid who played with little bulldozers and dump trucks then went on to do site work, preparing the land for roads and construction. He has spent his life preparing himself to prepare the way for Jesus by teaching and exhorting people to repent of their sins, then providing the ritual washing to affirm it.

Read More

Today is a feast day, the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. That raises the issue of what’s in a name? But before we get into names, let’s start with the ways we use language to make sense of, well, everything. For example, you are all sitting in pews. We could say seats, we could say benches, but the most accurate word in English is pews. That’s true whether someone knows the word or not, if we were in another country with another language we’d need to learn new words and/or find people who understood ours.

Being a pew, its meaning goes deeper. It’s not just a place to sit, it’s a place specifically set aside for prayer, for hearing God’s word, for exchanging God’s peace and on and on. Some objects, some places are special. The layers of meaning can go very deep and frame our lives.

Read More

There is a challenge, a quandary if you will, that affects the people who serve on breakfast teams. They have to make a choice when they cook on Sunday mornings. Do they finish breakfast, clean up and go home and watch the service online knowing they have served Our Lord and his church? Or, do they rush home for a quick shower and change of clothes and return for service. The third option is to simply stay and attend service.

The concern they typically raise about that third option is that they don’t want to smell like bacon. I don’t understand that. Bacon has a beautiful smell. People get excited when they walk into a home and smell bacon. I’d say it’s a favorite smell, even attractive. They should make a cologne of it: Bacon. I can see the ads, featuring Kevin Bacon. He would turn to the camera and say, “You can smell the sizzle.”

I deeply appreciate our breakfast teams and each must decide what to do according to his or her own conscience. But if you do smell bacon, say, “Thank you.” The smell of bacon and bacon itself being a part of our life in the church points to an issue we find in our scriptures today, our release from the law and our call to “the obedience of faith.” If we weren’t released from the law, no bacon.

Read More