Jesus and Dr. King Were ALL Wet!

January 13, 2019

Sunday, we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord.  During the week following, we’ll be reminded of both the achievements and the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  He’s been gone long enough that, among the many lofty remembrances, we’re likely to hear more about his clay feet.

What’s most often left out of the larger-than-life King story, as well as the diss and trash King tales, is a central feature of his personal character.  Martin Luther King, Jr., was baptized a Christian.  He was ALL wet!  His identity, his becoming, his personhood, was shaped by that claim.

I’m thinking both stories – Jesus’ and Dr. King’s – can help us move more readily and regularly into the reality God has in mind for us because we’re baptized.  See, God’s leading and God’s feeding called Dr. King, and calls each of us, to grow and to become the person God sees when God looks at us through the baptized Messiah Jesus, on whom the Spirit of God came to rest near the Jordan.

At our 9:30 A.M., Sunday worship, in prayer, Word, song, sermon and Meal, we’ll be reminded that Baptism is still the way God claims us – enabling us to be ALL wet.  Baptism is still the occasion and the encounter by which God invites us to turn away from our own interests and join God’s otherwise vision for the cosmos – to leave WET footprints in our wake.  Baptism is still the way God’s Spirit equips us to join God’s saving work, begun in Jesus – empowering us to be ALL wet.

Pastor Jeff