ISBC 45 - It’s Already Over
Chapter 45 of Hope: A User's Manual
When confronted with the world as it is, when addressing the complacency in the system or the inertia in our own hearts, we need to channel movie Gandalf: you shall not. You shall not win. We the people have power. We refuse to let despair and gloom have the last word, and if it means we go down fighting for what’s right, so be it.1
A few Sundays ago, I had sat down on my couch in my church office and I saw this on my hand.
It was a rainbow from a cut glass piece that I have in one of my windows. At several points in the year, the morning sun shines on that just right and I have these rainbows all over one side of my office. It is a beautiful sight. But there was something about this moment of the sign of the promise on my hand. This moment was also about a week after a simply beautiful baptism that we celebrated in worship.
The little boy was hysterical - After I had baptized him, he kept reaching down to play in the water. He wanted to just keep splashing in the baptismal font’s water. So after each sentence, I lowered him down, he splashed and then I brought him back up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Then as the liturgy was ending, the congregation clapped to celebrate and he started clapping and laughing right along with them. It was beautiful.
Looking at that promise mark on my hand, I smiled about that baptism and beautiful words came to my mind.
Child of the covenant, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.
Child of the covenant...sealed by the Holy Spirit...marked as Christ’s own forever.
I don’t remember my baptism as I was an infant when it took place, but that promise is still upon me. I am a child of the covenant. I am sealed by the Holy Spirit. I am marked as Christ’s own forever.
There’s a beautiful scene in the movie, O Brother Where Art Thou where the three escapees come upon a baptism in the woods and one of them, Delmar, jumps the line and is baptized. As he comes back to the shore, he exclaimed, “neither God not man got’s nothing on me now...come on in boys, the water is fine...”
While baptism is often talked of as being connected to salvation, I have been holding to it more in the spirit of what MaryAnn shared in this chapter. Baptism speaks to me that no matter what happens, I am a child of the covenant. I am sealed by the Holy Spirit. I am marked as Christ’s own forever. This chapter ended with a powerful story of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s courage in standing up to the forces of the South African apartheid government but doing so in such joy and such confidence and even a beautiful sense of welcome.
But Tutu remained undaunted. He preached against the evils of apartheid, declaring it could not endure. At one extraordinary point he addressed the police directly: “You are powerful. You are very powerful, but you are not gods, and I serve a God who cannot be mocked. So, since you’ve already lost, since you’ve already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side!” With that, the congregation erupted in dance and song.2
That act by Archbishop Tutu came out of one who knew that no matter what, he was going to be fine. He was a child of the covenant. He was sealed by the Holy Spirit. He was marked as Christ’s own forever. He stood and spoke and loved in hope. And he not only knew that for himself but he saw that in everyone else there - those singing and dancing and those he invited to join in. All of them children of the covenant all of them sealed by the Holy Spirit. All of them marked as Christ’s own forever
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 187). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition
Wallace Chappell, The Call of God: Selected Sermons (Author House, 2011), 162 quoted in McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 188). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition
Thank-you for the delightful baptism story! Such joy!