Sermon: May 29 2022 Ascension Sunday
Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka
Scripture(s): 1 Corinthians 12:12-13; Acts 2:37-47
As today is a baptismal day, I’ll be following an ancient church tradition by delivering the sermon in the form of a letter to those being baptized—Ada and Henry. Even though they won’t even be here, and are a little young they can read it one day. But we’re all invited to listen in. Cuz it’s not just for them, but for all of us in the end.
Dear Ada and Henry,
I’m writing you this letter on a very special day. Today the two of you were baptized together. Today, your church family gathered around you, and Reverend Ingrid and I did what people have done for almost two thousand years. We poured water over your heads three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, marked your foreheads in the sign of the cross in oil, and laid hands on you and prayed for the Holy Spirit. On this day, your mom renewed her baptism, too, alongside three other members of our church—Joyce, Stan and Alice.
Baptism makes this a special day for many reasons. But one of the most important reasons is that today we welcome you into the family of God. A different kind of family. A family that isn’t necessarily related by blood, but one that is glued together by God’s own Spirit of love. A family made up of billions of people who are alive now, but also people who have died. And even people who haven’t been born yet. All different cultures, and languages, and skin colours, and all different kinds of families. Of course, the whole human family is loved by God, and God so loved the whole world that God sent Jesus for everybody. But today’s the day that you officially became part of this family, a family that Paul, one of the writers of the Bible, calls the Body of Christ. Today is the day where you were made brothers and sisters of Jesus, and children of the living God.
Now, this might sound overwhelming. How can you be family to people you don’t even know? Well, God solved that problem with the local church. St. George’s United Church is where Jesus’ brothers and sisters gather on the ground here in Courtenay where you live. Here all kinds of people came to see you be baptized, and to promise to help you and your family get to know God better. And the coolest thing is that all these people were so different from each other. There were toddlers and kids your age, people the age of your mom and dad. But also teenagers, senior citizens and some grownups who were really really old. There were people with a lot of money, and people without much at all. People from different places and different skin colours. Some were married, some were single, and some had lost people they love.
It’s cool because even though they were all so different, the thing that brought them together is that they knew that they are loved by Jesus in a way that nothing and nobody can change. This makes them want to love each other the way Jesus loves them.
One of my favourite stories in the Bible is from a book called Acts. We read it today. It tells us what Jesus’ friends did after he was raised from the dead on Easter. One of Jesus’ friends—a guy named Peter who was kind of a screw up—was sharing the story of Jesus with a huge crowd. He told them how Jesus died on the cross, and was make alive again by God. Love won against hate, darkness couldn’t overcome light, and that good would win and the end would be a joyful song forever. How in Jesus everyone is forgiven. Which means they never had to be afraid, or be alone again. Not matter what.
The crowd loved the story so much that they asked Peter what they should do next, and he told them that they should be baptized, just like you are today. Peter said this promise wasn’t just for the grownups being baptized, but for their children, too, and everyone who God calls. Peter must have been a better preacher than me because it says that day three thousand people were baptized! It must have been a mega church.
What’s more is that all the people who were baptized got together in a community just like the one you were baptized into. They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, they told each other the same story Peter told them. They broke bread, they ate together as a family, and they prayed for each other and for the world. Sometimes they sold stuff to help eachother make ends meet, they shared, took care of people who couldn’t take care of themselves and made sacrifices for eachother. And when people saw how the Spirit of Jesus was at work in their church it made a whole bunch of them say “wow… I want that, too.”
This part of the story has always been really important. But it’s especially important now in the time that you’re growing up in. People now can be especially lonely, and isolated. A lot of people have given up on finding friends, on finding people to love, or people who will love them. And they can be especially afraid, and worried of what’s going to happen next in the world. Some of them have given up. I’m a grown up, and I worry about my own kids, and what’s going to happen to them, too.
Luckily, we’ve been given the church. The church isn’t perfect by any means. The church is made up of people, people who struggle to love and be loved just like everyone else. It’s screwed up really badly, and can be disappointing, just like every other group of people. In spite of all of that though, the church is where I was told about Jesus and baptized just like in the book of Acts, and just like you were today. And it’s where they keep telling me that story because it’s so easy to forget, and where people have loved me, and other people in ways I never thought possible. And it’s helped me not feel so lonely or afraid or worried about the future. In fact, it’s helped me come to know true happiness and joy, even when life is really hard. It’s been a gift from God.
In that same way, I pray that this community will be given the grace to be that same gift to you. That we may love you, and remind you of how much God loves you, no matter how much you screw up or fall short. To care for you when you can’t care for yourself, and for you to do the same. To break bread with you, that we would eat together and share your burdens and joys. And most especially, to help you remember God’s promises. That because of Jesus, there’s always hope we can be confident that everything is going to be OK.
Dearest Ada and Henry. Every time you wash your face. Every time your mom and dad force you to take a bath or every time west coast weather ruins a perfect sunny day. Every time someone fills the font with water—the same font you were baptized in, or a completely different one entirely. I pray that you remember today. Because today not only means that you belong to God. But because you belong to God, you belong to us, too, no matter where that “us” may be.
May you remember this day, where you became part of the body of Christ, the family of Jesus. That your baptism means you belong to God, you belong to us, and we belong to you. May you remember your baptisms, and be thankful, every single day. And don’t worry if you can’t—because we’ll remember for you.
Amen.