Hymn Suggestions:             ELW 304       Christ, When for Us You Were Baptized

ELW 310       Songs of Thankfulness and Praise

ELW 396       Spirit of Gentleness

ELW 459       Wade in the Water

ACS 955        Come to the Water of Life

Pastor Karen Behling (she/her)

Hastings, MN

Children’s Message

This would be a wonderful week to gather with the children around the baptismal font. Daniel Erlander’s board book Come to the Water, Little One makes for a great guide for engaging conversation.

OR      For an emphasis on creation, the picture book A Very Big Problem by Amy-Jill Levine and Sandy Eisenberg Sasso invites us to celebrate God’s love for all of creation. In this story, voices argue over who God loves most. Is it the Rain or the Earthworms or the Birds or the Children? And of course, God’s love is big enough for all.

Life-Giving Waters

The synopsis of creation in Psalm 29 begins with the voice of the LORD upon the waters from which there flows life for trees and animals and all of creation. The reference to “flood” at the end of this psalm reminds us of water’s capability to also destroy. And yet, when we remember the full story of Noah’s Ark and the flood, we see God using the flood waters to bring new life and a hopeful future. In the congregation I was serving when we were emerging from the time of shutdown during the COVID pandemic, it was the story of Noah’s Ark with the promise of God’s presence and the opportunity to open the doors and rebuild our life together that gave us hope for our new future.

Our great hope is that we have been claimed by God in the waters of Baptism. Our life is rooted in the promises of Baptism – that we belong to God, that God is with us always, and that absolutely nothing is strong enough to separate us from God’s love for us and all of creation. God uses what our bodies most need and what we cannot live without – WATER – to seal this relationship with the divine.

At Jesus’ baptism, his coming up out of the waters sets the stage for God’s voice that in Matthew’s version, is for the benefit of the witnesses. God the Creator, who brings life, urges us to look to the Son who will lead us in the way of life. To follow Jesus is to live out our baptismal identity. Some refer to this as “living wet”. In the services of Baptism and Affirmation of Baptism, we make promises:

To live among God’s faithful people,

To hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper,

To proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed,

To serve all people, following the example of Jesus,

And to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.

To live by these promises is to experience life for me, for us in all of our wonderful diversity, and for all of creation.

The Voice of the LORD

With multiple references to “the voice of the LORD,” Psalm 29 calls to mind the work of the Creator in Genesis 1. God speaks, and things happen. God speaks, and there is life which means that there is hope. This voice is powerful, mighty, strong. And this voice can call forth actions that are powerful, mighty, strong. A voice that can break cedars and strip forests bare is a voice to be regarded with awe and fear. Those familiar lines from Luther’s Small Catechism apply well to the mood of this psalm, “We are to fear and love God, so that. . . .” The tone of this psalm is joyful and hopeful, because this God whose voice is so strong and mighty and powerful is God who strengthens and blesses God’s people and all of creation.

Take note that in Matthew, the voice from heaven is for the benefit of the witnesses. The voice is for our benefit so that we will recognize Jesus for who he is and what he has come to do – embody love, save us from sin and death, show us the way toward justice. The voice from heaven declares that “this is my Son”. As the Creator brings life and hope, so too, will the Son bring life and hope. And to follow the Son is to follow on the path towards life and hope for all who belong to God’s creation.

NOTE:            Be sure to check out the Confession and Forgiveness for this day in

Sundays and Seasons where the Invocation includes reference to “the

Word who spoke life into being.” The reference to “the Wind stirring the

waters” is a nice carryover from the “stir up” prayers of Advent.

Justice for All

Today’s passage from Isaiah invites us to recognize the expansiveness of God’s vision for justice for nations plural and not just my nation singular (verse 1). God’s justice also includes life beyond that of humans. We humans are not God’s only beloved ones. God’s love and God’s justice reach beyond lines of distinction and division that we draw, including lines of distinction between human beings and the rest of God’s creation.

God intends to establish justice in the earth (verse 4). God makes declarations for what will happen. The option is not whether justice will come, but whether God’s justice will come with or without our help and support. God gives advance notice with the implied invitation that we will join forces in striving for justice. Recall that the promises for both Baptism and Affirmation of Baptism include the promise “to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” 

Cornelius and Peter

Today’s reading from Acts comes at the end of yet one more surprise when people were willing to follow where the Holy Spirit led. This story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts chapters 9-10 is worth retelling to give inspiration and challenge for our relationships with those who are different in race, gender identity, culture, economic status, and more. Peter and Cornelius differ in a multitude of ways. Through prayer, the Spirit calls each to seek out the other, and each of them is brave enough to venture forth into the unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Theirs is a powerful story about crossing lines of what had been sharp lines of separation distinguishing between us and them. Today’s reading starts near the end of this story after Peter has been putting together the pieces of all that he has seen and heard. The light bulb has gone off in his head to help Peter realize how truly expansive and inclusive is the love of God for all peoples, for all of earth’s inhabitants.

NOTE: If any would like to spend 5 weeks diving into this story of Peter and Cornelius, there is a Lenten series (released in 2025), born out of intentional reflection and study in the Northwest Synod of Wisconsin over racial justice. Download this series (which could be used any time of the year) through the “Resources” tab on the synod website or click here for a direct link: https://storage2.snappages.site/V3B7TF/assets/files/LENT_2025_-_Stepping_through_the_Door_2_-66.pdf