Loving God, your sense of timing is often different from ours, and yet you have shown yourself to be faithful in keeping your promises.  Teach us to live by the Holy Spirit, trusting in Jesus Christ our Saviour, for we pray in his name.  Amen.

            One of the things about the way that God operates is that sometimes to us it can seem as though nothing is happening.  We pray for something and we don’t see the results right away.  We see things getting worse around us and we think that God has maybe checked out for a while.  We hear God’s promises, but it seems as though God is taking a very long time to fulfill them.

         One of the gifts that we have in the Scriptures is that we get to see how faithful God is in keeping promises, even when it takes a very long time to do so.  Today, of course, we hear about David as he is anointed king of all Israel.  As some of you might already realize, this is not the first time that David is anointed king.  The first time, he is a young teenager who is looking after his father’s sheep near Bethlehem.  The prophet Samuel comes and anoints him “in the presence of his brothers,” as the one whom God has chosen to be Israel’s next king (1 Sam. 16:13).

         However, it is at least 15 years or more before what Samuel has said actually comes to pass.  In between, David kills Goliath the Philistine using his slingshot, and plays the harp for King Saul.  He also spends some time as a commander in Saul’s army, and even spends some time living in caves when Saul decides that he wants David dead.  In all this time, David does not take any action to make himself king, but waits for the time that God has in mind when he will replace Saul as king of Israel.  A lesser man might have been far less patient!  However, God comes through, and David is anointed king not only by God, but also by the people.

         Meanwhile, we also heard today about Jesus riding into Jerusalem, and the people shouting (among other things), “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” (Mk. 11:10).  Keeping in mind that David lived more than 900 years before Jesus, why would they think that the kingdom of David is still coming?... [Two things: 1. God had promised David in a covenant that one of his descendants would rule Israel forever.  At the time that Jesus is born, there has not been a king from David’s family for hundreds of years.  2. The people are expecting a Messiah (anointed one) who is a descendant of David and will save them from the Romans.  They are hoping that Jesus is the promised Messiah.]

         Once again, we see God’s promises being fulfilled after a very long time.  While Jesus doesn’t turn out to be the type of Messiah and King that the people are expecting, he is a descendant of David, and is uniquely qualified to rule forever – not in the earthly Jerusalem, but in the heavenly Jerusalem.

         And then today, as we celebrated Holy Baptism with Ramona, we heard some of God’s promises that are given to us in baptism.  We heard about how we are reborn into a living hope in baptism.  We heard about how we are set free from the power of sin and death and are raised to new life with Jesus.  We heard about how we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, made members of the body of Christ, and given eternal life.  And then, biblically speaking, there is the promise: “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mk. 16:16).

         All of these promises are given to Ramona today, but it will take some time for her to grow into them.  Currently she has what some have called an “infant faith,” just like John the Baptist when he was still in his mother’s womb (Lk.1:44).  As she grows older, though, she will learn to have a different kind of trust in Jesus.  This will happen by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the promises that her parents and sponsors have made today.

         At the same time, as with God’s promises to David and the promise of a Messiah, some of these promises will take more time than others to be fulfilled.  They will, however, be fulfilled in this life as well as after death.  Eternal life, for example, begins now and lasts into eternity.  Also, in baptism we are set free from the power of death, but, as one of the confirmation students astutely pointed out this week, we still die.  The difference for those who believe in Jesus is that the fear and denial of death do not take over our lives.  Instead, we know that we go to meet Jesus, and that death is not the end, but a new beginning.

         In the meantime, we live with God’s promises in this life.  Are we ready to grab hold of the promises that God has given to us, both in baptism and in the Scriptures?  We have been set free from the power of sin.  Are we ready to rely on the Holy Spirit daily to keep us from sin and to be in constant dialogue with God in order to stay on the right path?  We have been raised to new life in Christ.  Are we ready to be open to the Holy Spirit so that new life can truly take hold in us?  Jesus promised to be with us always.  Are we ready to walk in a daily relationship with him, getting to know him well enough that we will recognize his presence with us?

         Certainly, things do not always look like God is in charge, and some of our prayers take some time to come to fruition.  However, God continues to be faithful, and to love and to bless the world through Jesus Christ our Saviour.  Amen.

Pentecost 19 (NL 2)                        2 Samuel 5:1-5; 6:1-5; Psalm 150

October 20, 2019                             Mark 11:8-10

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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