A very good place to start.

Okay, so it isn't the very beginning, but Baptism of the Lord is a very good place to start this blog since of course, this is the celebration of the beginning of our Lord's ministry.

The way that I have approached this Sunday (this year the account is from Mark) is to focus on the voice from heaven..."You are my Son; my beloved; with you I am well pleased." In Mark and Luke, the words are directed right at Jesus "YOU are my son.." In Matthew the words are "THIS IS my son...." This is always somehow a "wow" moment when I hear God telling Jesus he is well pleased with him, when Jesus has not yet done much (at least not in our recorded gospels and that is our authority...although if you have not read Anne Rice's first two installations of her Christ the Lord books, I would advise you do so. It really caught my heart and imagination).

With the "YOU" words, the gospel lesson for this Sunday just reaches out and says to us preachers "YOU are my beloved, too." And in turn, it is a great Sunday to remind the congregation of that as well. And that usually means, for me, using the Reaffirmation of Baptismal vows in your congregation.

I remember a marvelous sermon on reaffirmation of baptism that Rhymes Moncure preached at annual conference where he said to us all "Did you all know that everyone here has the first first name?" Oh? I thought...and then he said, "Through God's love each of our first names is....precious..precious Jim, precious Brian, precious Susan"...now if you can use that and not refer to Gollum, please do.

Just a word more about the "logistics" of using water with the reaffirmation...yes, remember, this is not re-baptism, so water should not be poured or sprinkled on the head or put in your local UMC baptistery to immerse people in except if they have not been baptized before. I have been sprinkled with water from a palm leaf brought through the congregation; I have used water to place a cross on people's foreheads---which really of course resonates with the coming cross of ashes...think through what this might mean for you or your church; I have come up to the baptistery and touched the water. The most meaningful symbolic act of remembrance for me was being asked to take one of the small clear glass pebbles (like the ones that go in vases) that had been placed in the baptistery (or baptism bowl) covered with water --and then being asked with the rest of the congregation to take it from the water while the pastor asks them one by one "remember your baptism and be thankful." Folks can take their pebble home and be urged to put it someplace where they will encounter it often. I had a person recently from a church I served many years ago take out their wallet and show me the place where he keeps his pebble. Wow. What do you do when there are unbaptized folks, especially youth and adults present? What I have tended to do is to invite them to really think about what it means that God loves them unconditionally and to contemplate what it might mean to be baptized, and somehow, they, in kairos time, "remember forward"...well it usually worked pretty well. And ask them to come take a pebble if they wish to.

Visual suggestions: Use those shells EVERYWHERE that you, and better yet everybody else in the congregation who wants to bring them, collected at the ocean sometime in the past....put those shells on the altar, in the narthex, anyplace else you think of that is appropriate...and use other water themes...water in a clear pitcher, one of those little fountains run during the whole service on the altar...and at Broadway and its wonderful center aisle, we often slithered a long length of bluish fabric (the more transparent the better) down the center aisle as the river in our midst.

Music: Searchfor those appropriate water hymns...everything from Come Thou Fount, to Shall we Gather, and then the great baptism hymns as well. I have a hymn text I wrote for Cana's baptism and we used at Caleb's baptism (at Annual Conference -Missouri East 1991) that I really should make available. It is for infant baptism. I really like You Are Mine for this day from The Faith We Sing.

Enough. Is this kind of thing helpful???