Loving God, you claim us as your own in baptism and continue to sustain us with your loving Spirit.  Turn our hearts and minds to you this day, and renew in us the gifts of faith, hope and love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    One of the hymns that we are going to sing today is “Children of the Heavenly Father.”  The first verse begins like this: “Children of the heav’nly Father safely in his bosom gather” (EvLW #781).  Where, exactly, is the Father’s bosom?... It’s your chest, right?  For a child, that has to be one of the most comforting places to be – in the bosom of your mother or your father.  In fact, for premature babies their health improves by leaps and bounds when they have skin to skin contact on the chest of their mother or father.

    And so, I would like to invite you to imagine today that you are being held and cradled in the bosom of the Father.  For, in baptism, that is what God does for us.  We are held and cradled as God’s own child as God’s love is poured out on us through water and the Spirit.  God holds us close and says to us, “In your baptism, you have been united with my Son, Jesus.  This means that you share in his life, death and resurrection.  Because he lives, you also will live.”

    Now, in case this should sound simply like wishful thinking to you, I’m actually not making this up.  This closeness that we have with God through Jesus comes straight out of the Scriptures – especially the Gospel of John.  The gospel that we heard today from John is one of many that talk about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and how they relate to one another and to us.

    In John we hear how Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus.  We also hear how the Spirit will be in us and how Jesus is in us.  And then there are the parts about us being in Christ, or in Jesus, and about being in the Spirit.  This is John’s way of talking about really close relationships.  You can think of that image again of being held in God’s bosom.  Or perhaps you find the image helpful of the vine and the branches – how the branches need to be in the vine or attached to the vine in order to have life and to grow and to bear fruit.

    Of course, for some people it’s always difficult to imagine being in a relationship with the God whom we cannot see.  One way to think about it might be having an invisible friend – except, in this case, the friend is not imaginary, but is actually there.  Another way to think about it is that we primarily relate to God through our mind and our heart.  One of the blessings at the end of evening prayer goes like this: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus” (EvLW p. 319).  When our hearts and our minds are in Christ Jesus, that is the close relationship that God wants for us.

    However, it also does not stay only in our hearts and in our minds.  As today’s gospel reminds us, when we are in that relationship of love with Jesus, other people can tell.  They can tell because that same love of Jesus shows up in how we act and what we say and how we treat other people.

They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them (Jn. 14:21).

So says Jesus in today’s gospel.

    There is much in today’s gospel and also in the sacrament of baptism that is pure promise.  God does not say to us that once we are good enough we can be baptized.  God does not require us to earn our halo, or to be able to explain the Holy Trinity, or even to commit to being in church every Sunday before we can be baptized.  Rather, baptism is a gift – in much the same way that communion is a gift.  In both cases, God reaches out to us in love and forgiveness and tells us that we are God’s precious children because of Jesus Christ.

    For our part, we are simply asked to come.  We are asked to come, knowing that we need God’s presence and power in our lives.  We are asked to come, giving thanks for Jesus, who came that we might have life.  We are asked to come and to receive the love and the forgiveness and the salvation that God has prepared for us.

    At the same time, you may have noticed that the parents and the sponsors are asked to make certain promises as part of the baptism service.  This is because, as with any relationship, our relationship with God doesn’t grow any stronger unless we nurture it.  We don’t learn to trust God unless we are aware of God’s presence and power and are allowed to discover that God is trustworthy.  We don’t learn to love as Jesus loved unless we first learn about Jesus and get to know him.  While God takes the initiative and makes us saints in baptism, we continue to learn and to grow throughout our lives, gradually becoming the people that God has created us to be.  As we mature in our faith, we grow up into Christ.

    This is what happens when we allow God to be at work in our lives.  We don’t just wake up one day and decide, “You know, I’m going to be a holy person.  I think I’ll be more like Jesus.”  As Lutherans, we don’t believe that we could do any such thing – at least, not all by ourselves.  Instead, we are taught to be open to the work of the Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit who gives the gift of faith and who empowers us to become the people that God intended us to be.

    Because of this, you may have noticed that there were lots of prayers for the Holy Spirit today – particularly for each person who was baptized.  Aside from the fact that receiving the Holy Spirit has always been a part of Christian baptism, we are also acknowledging how much each one of us needs the power of God at work in our lives.  This is the Advocate – the one who comes alongside us to help.  This is the Spirit of truth – or if you prefer, the Spirit of Jesus, who shows us how much God loves us.  This is the Spirit that allows us to be in God and God to be in us.

    May each of you who are here today experience the power of the Holy Spirit at work in your lives, for God has called you to continue to grow in faith, hope and love – and the greatest of these is love!  Amen.

Easter 6(A)                                    John 14:15-21
May 25, 2014
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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