Sealed by the Holy Spirit
Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Baptism of the Lord
January 12, 2025
When I left you here on Christmas Eve, singing “Silent Night, Holy Night….all is calm…all is bright…,” most of us left with cheerful hearts. Hearts of peace and joy.
As many of you knew, Dick and I were headed off for a family vacation. A time to gather our “little” family of fifteen together in one place for the first time in six years. We made it with thirteen of us, and I’m considering that a win!
We had a wonderful and memorable vacation filled with a lot of love and laughter, and the usual family dynamics which makes us family.
Then, on January 1st, we awoke to the news of a terrible terrorist attack in New Orleans, later followed by a horrific cyber truck explosion in Las Vegas.
On January 2nd, the day we flew home, I received a text in the airport to pray for one of my cousins to whom EMT’s had been called, and just a few minutes later saying that he had passed away.
I was leaving a beautiful sunny destination, although maybe not as warm as I had envisioned, to return to a “normalcy” that I both craved and dreaded.
Each morning when I awoke on vacation, I looked out on the beautiful sunrise. We would make our way down to breakfast to sit as close to the water view as we could position ourselves. Soaking in the calm views and the warm sun.
Now, on January 2nd, those memories of the candlelight and beautiful voices singing “Silent Night,” slowly began to fade. The views of the water, the warmth of the sun, and those long afternoon naps were fading all too soon from my memory as I returned from vacation.
Upon landing in Tallahassee close to midnight, we chose to drive home because our bodies were still on Central time, but I knew the next evening, I would have to make my way to the funeral home in Nashville to offer what support I could to my cousins on their tragic loss of a great life lived that ended all too soon.
After the funeral, we had lunch at a café, and shortly thereafter I began getting sick. There’s no way to know whether this was due to food poisoning, or some stomach bug I had picked up during my return travel, or in the many people I had shook hands with and hugged necks with over the two days after being home.
But for whatever reason, I got really sick. I longed to hear the voices singing “Silent Night,” and thanks to Brian and Jaxson, I did through technology.
I longed to see those beautiful sunrises, the calm waters of my vacation, and thanks to beautiful pictures, I did. Technology can be a wonderful thing.
Mostly, I prayed for healing to be able to be back here with you. To do all the things that I needed to be doing here for you, my wonderful friends.
I wanted to hear your Christmas stories, and share in the joy of the New Year, but joy was fleeting.
Then came stories of uncontrollable wildfires in California, and the horrific pictures. Lives will be changed forever.
It seems like an eternity since I left you on December 24th, but it has only been just over two weeks since I was last here with you.
Often, when I am leaving for vacation, I plan ahead to be sure I have everything lined up to make for an easier return back so that I can be prepared for the unexpected.
Little did I know, that I would be calling on Session to appoint David to stand in my place in the pulpit which I had so aptly prepared before I left home for my vacation?
Little did I know, that John Vick would volunteer to be Liturgist, so that David could move over to the pulpit?
Yet, I knew when I needed you, you would step up, and you would be great, and I am so grateful for this church family that does not fail me or each other, and more importantly, you do not fail your Lord.
If you are ever at a loss, feeling a bit down because things have not turned out exactly as you have planned them, and maybe you might even be questioning why this is, I would remind you to read Isaiah 43:1-7.
I’m sure, like me, you have all been through something at some point in your life, and after reflecting upon it on the other side of the event, you might have said, “Wow! How did I get through that?”
Just read this scripture. It is not just anyone saying this, it is the Lord, who created you, who formed you, who redeemed you, who called you by name, and who claims you as his.
No matter what we go through in life, no matter what happens to us or family unexpectedly, we can survive it because he is with us in it and through it because we belong to the Lord, and the Lord will not forsake us.
It is because of our Lord and the very breath he breathes in us that we are able to go on.
As we turn to our New Testament scripture, we are reminded that John the Baptist new his place and his role in the life of Christ.
I think about the scene as Jesus approached the water, and John greeted him as the people looked on. There was a bond between these two that was more than human flesh, it was a spiritual bond created by our Lord, and nurtured by the Holy Spirit.
As Jesus is raised from the waters of his baptism by John, the Lord sends down the Holy Spirit to claim Jesus as his Son, the Beloved.
Our Lord God was pleased with Jesus, and he sealed him by the Holy Spirit.
A few weeks back, when I had the great honor of baptizing Leah Collins, and recited the words as I placed the water upon her head, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, these words came easy as I have heard them my entire life.
But it was the next words that I spoke, that have really resonated with me, “you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, chosen as Christ’s forever.”
Through our baptism, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, just like Jesus was the day he was baptized.
Every Sunday, we pour water into the baptismal font, and we are asked to be called back to the waters of our baptism for renewal, and today, I would remind you also to remember that you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit.
The seal that our Lord sends upon us, is secure.
I couldn’t help but think back to the days of the Glad-lock and Zip-lock bag commercials. There was a lot of debate about who had the best zip lock bag. One of the commercials would place the food in the bag, zip it up, and shake it hard to attempt to get the food to fall out, or to prove that it would not fall out.
There was one where Glad had these two elderly ladies who wouldn’t change. They stood by their own preference, and so Glad asked one to turn a bag of creamed corn over the other’s head to prove their allegiance to their bag, but the one who would have had the corn poured over her head, quickly changed her mind when it became her head that mattered. She trusted the Glad bag with the yellow and blue stripes that turned to green to confirm the seal was secure.
She was counting on the green seal because she trusted it could not be broken.
The Holy Spirit by which we have been sealed in our baptism is like that green seal, in fact it is even better. There is no chance that the seal of the Holy Spirit will ever be faulty or broken.
No matter how unsettling the world becomes around us, our normalcy, our everyday inner peace, can only be secure in our baptism that is sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Our Lord has chosen us, and we are Christ’s… chosen and secure forever.