He Is Risen! He is risen indeed!

Today, Easter Sunday, at 11:00 AM Mountain Daylight time, a service of Baptism for Nate Everett will begin. In most ways, this service will be like many baptisms celebrated in the Lutheran church. A congregation will gather. Nate, born August 25^,2020, an infant, will be presented for baptism by his doting parents and adoring siblings. There will be witnesses in attendance, including, Nate’s baptismal sponsors, grandparents, and other friends and relatives. Words will be said according to the Lutheran rite of Baptism as found in the Lutheran Book of Worship and water will be applied to Nate’s forehead in the very name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. However, in some ways this baptismal service will very different.

Nate and his family will be in Red Deer, Alberta, as will his sponsors and other participants. However, the officiant, the undersigned, will be in my home in Kelowna, British Columbia, an 8 or 9 hour drive away. The other participants will be in their homes as well. We will be celebrating a socially distanced COVID-19 baptism. The internet will facilitate this worship service. We will be connected to one another, in real time, by ZOOM. We will be connected by ethereal substances, electricity flowing though wires, lines and cables and radio waves pulsating at various frequencies through the air around us. This is amazing, a miracle, a gift from God. But God will connect us in another way.

The Holy Spirit will connect us. When we were baptized, we received the Holy Spirit. As Luther writes, the same Holy Spirit that has been calling, gathering, enlightening and sanctifying the whole Christian Church that was, is now and will be until Jesus comes again. The Holy Spirit does not need the internet. The Holy Spirit is not daunted by distance or time. The Holy Spirit connects the past, the present and the future.

By about the third century new  converts and their entire family, were only baptized only on Easter Sunday. Specifically, at dawn on Easter Sunday, following and all-night Easter Vigil which included, prayer and scripture reading.

The Apostle Paul did declare: Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Roman’s 6:3-5).

Inspired by the Apostle Paul, the early church believed that, through baptism on Easter Sunday, the new convert participated in the consummation of the Lord's passion and entered into the new life as a Christian sealed in Jesus' resurrection.

Jesus was baptized by Joh the Baptist in the Jordan River. At first, John refused Jesus' request. He declared that their roles should be reversed, that is,  John should have been baptized by Jesus.  The Lord's reply: “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15). John relented and baptized Jesus. John saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus.

Jesus’s baptism signaled the inauguration of his mission, empowered by the Holy Spirit, as the obedient Son, to bring about the salvation of the world. Jesus  was obedient even to the point of death on a cross (Phil. 2:8; Rom. 5:18). His innocent suffering and death paid the price for our sin. Jesus' human nature received the Holy Spirit so that he could pass the Holy Spirit on to us through  the waters of Baptism.  By his suffering, death and resurrection, Jesus secured our salvation.

Because of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the waters of Baptism are like the flood of the Old Testament, washing away the Nate’s sin, including original his sin, and like Noah and his family, saving Nate. The water of baptism points to the moment of creation. The Holy Spirit brooding over the water. At creation, God’s words brought everything known and unknown into existence. At baptism water and God’s words, will bring forth new life in Nate and make him a new creation. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17).

On Easter Sunday 2021 another dear soul, by the power of the Holy Spirit, participated in the consummation of the Lord's passion and entered into the new life as a Christian sealed in Jesus' resurrection. Thanks be to God!

Resurrection Sunday

He is risen! He is risen indeed!!

Spring Educational Event

Rwandan Appeal.

CALC's Annual General Convention - Saturday June 12th, 2021