Making Disciples
-Matthew 28:18-20
This Sunday, August 24, we will celebrate the sacrament of baptism. But it won’t be in the sanctuary… it will be in the swimming pool! Several of our students and children desire to be baptized. It isn’t very often that we are able to baptize people by immersion. As Presbyterians we believe that the sign and seal of God’s presence remains upon us regardless of whether we are baptized through sprinkling or immersion. It is God’s work, after all, we are simply being faithful to Christ’s command. At the end of Matthew, as Jesus was preparing to return to heaven, he gave this command with a promise. He told his disciples to… “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” And then Jesus gave the promise, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This command is a tall order… go to ALL nations! Because of the promise, we know that we do not go alone.
The baptism liturgy recites these words of Jesus from Matthew 28 and then we say, “Obeying the word of our Lord Jesus, and confident of his promises, we baptize those whom God has called. In baptism, God claims us, and seals us to show that we belong to God. God freed us from sin and death, uniting us with Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection.” Because we are united with Christ in his death we are freed from sin. Through his resurrection we are assured of our salvation and eternal home with God in heaven. This is the promise we confess through the sacrament of baptism. It is the reminder of God’s incredible love that goes beyond this world into the next.
This Sunday, I hope you will join us in worship at 10am and also at the pool party where we will baptize the grandchildren of Cliff and Debbie Bates. You don’t have to swim, but please come and celebrate with us how God continues to make disciples among us. We will be at the Shearer household in Burbank from 2-4pm. Please bring a snack to share.
By your Holy Spirit, feed our faith in Jesus so that we grow stronger in our loving concern for other people. Strengthen our faith so that Christ may live in us, so that we may live to please you, rather than try to please the world, and so that our priorities are yours, and not the greedy and selfish priorities of our society. We marvel at how your Spirit takes Jesus to the outsiders. May we welcome them as one with us. Lovingly wash us all clean and sow the risen Christ like a new seed, to sprout and grow in our lives. Amen.
