Loving God, you continue to amaze us with the gift of new life and to offer the gift of salvation to your children.  By the power of your Spirit, help us to continue to grow up into Christ; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    A birth changes everything.  It doesn’t matter if it’s your first child or your seventh – your life has just changed.  Your family dynamics change.  Your sleeping schedule (or lack thereof) changes.  You suddenly have this little person who needs your help all the time – to eat, to sleep, to change the diaper, to get dressed or undressed.  A birth changes everything.  In fact, it changes things even more if your name happens to be Sarah and you happen to be 90 years old when your first child is born.

    You see, for Abraham and Sarah, this wasn’t just any birth.  They had waited and waited for God’s promise to be fulfilled.  They had watched the years go by.  Abraham had tried other solutions to Sarah’s child-bearing difficulties.  Sarah had endured the disdain of all the other women around her as they kept reminding her that God had blessed them with children, while her womb had remained barren.

    Several times, God’s promise had been communicated to both Abraham and Sarah.  They would have many descendants - more than the stars in the sky.  Kings and nations would come from them.  And then, years down the road, all the families of the earth would be blessed through them and their descendants.  Until Isaac was born, all of this was almost laughable.

    In fact, when Abraham was 100 years old and was reminded once again of this promise of a child, he literally “fell on his face and laughed” (Gen. 17:17).  It just didn’t seem possible any more.  And Sarah, too, burst out laughing when those three visitors came and promised that she would have a son.  After all, she was 90 years old, and had never been able to have children before.  What made them think that she would suddenly be able to have a child now?  But she was about to discover that “for God all things are possible” (Mk. 10:27).

    And so, for Abraham and Sarah, the birth of Isaac definitely changed everything.  The despair and hopelessness that they had felt turned to joy and laughter.  In fact, the name Isaac means “he laughs.”  They discovered that in spite of their own impatience, God’s promises were kept at the right time.  They discovered that even in their old age, God could give new life.  A birth changes everything.

    Of course, there is another birth that comes to mind that changed things just as much or more than the birth of Isaac, and that is the birth of Jesus.  Once again, people had waited many years for the promised Messiah.  Many false messiahs had come and gone, and still they looked for the one who would fulfill the promises in the Hebrew Scriptures.

    However, when Jesus was born, he didn’t change things simply because of what he would do, but because of who he was.  In Jesus, God had dared to become human.  God had dared to be born as a fragile, needy baby who had to depend on others for everything that he needed.  God dared to send God’s Son, even knowing what would happen to him in the end.

    And so, as God living among us – as the fullest expression of God’s love – as the promised Redeemer and Messiah, Jesus changed everything.  He lifted up the poor and the outcast.  He healed the sick and raised the dead.  He included the ones who were excluded by everybody else.  He showed people what God is like, and he shared every aspect of human life except sin.

    Because of his suffering and death, he is with those who suffer.  Because of his experiences of loneliness and hunger and betrayal and abandonment, he is with those who experience the same things.  And because of his resurrection, he raises to life all those who share in his life through baptism and who place their faith in him.

    The thing is that baptism also changes everything.  The birth of Jesus changed everything.  Jesus’ life, death and resurrection changed everything.  And it is baptism that connects us with those things.  Baptism, in fact, is also a birth.  1 Peter calls it “a new birth into a living hope” (1:3).  The gospel of John talks about being born anew or born from above – born of water and the Spirit.  In baptism we are reborn as children of God and inheritors of eternal life.  And that second birth changes everything.

    For one thing, it changes how God sees us.  The Scriptures try to explain how in baptism we are united with Jesus and actually share in his life, death and resurrection.  And so, it is kind of like we are given a new white robe and put on Jesus - particularly the holiness and the righteousness of his life.  It is like a great exchange where Jesus takes our sinfulness and gives us his holiness instead.  So when we are baptized, God looks at us and sees only Jesus.  God doesn’t see our sinful and self-centered nature any more.  Instead, God sees precious children of God.  We are given a new identity as members of God’s family and brothers and sisters of Jesus and of one another.

    This is an inheritance, and not something that is earned.  It is a gift of God.  God makes a covenant with us in baptism and makes us a whole bunch of promises.  These promises include things like resurrection and forgiveness and eternal life.  For us, as we grow in years and as our lives progress, we have the freedom to either accept this covenant or reject it.  For God’s part, those promises do not change.

    For our part, as we grow up into Christ we grow in love for God and for one another.  The old, self-centered life is left behind, and a new person emerges – what Paul refers to as a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).  In this respect, and in our identity as children of God and inheritors of eternal life, baptism changes everything.

    And so, today we remember and celebrate the changes that a birth can bring.  We remember how Abraham and Sarah went from despair to hope, from incredulous laughter to joy, and from death to life.  We remember how God gave even more value and dignity to human life by coming and living among us.  We remember how Jesus lived and died and rose among us, destroying the power of sin and death and opening the way to life.  A birth changes everything, and for this we give thanks to God.  Amen.

Pentecost 17 (NL 2) / Holy Baptism                Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7
September 20, 2015                        Mark 10:27
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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