Urgings and Stirrings

Maybe it was always supposed to be like this.

In Advent, as we prepared for the arrival of Christ, we heard snippets from Isaiah and his claim that a voice is crying out from the wilderness and that voice is telling us that God’s agents are working on God’s behalf to prepare a way for the Lord.

A voice cries out.

That voice is in the wilderness.

And it speaks of people and angels and holy men and holy women preparing the way for the Lord.

Making straight the highway of the Lord.

They are lifting up valleys to smooth God’s path.

They are lowering mountains to level God’s path.

God is due to arrive, make straight the highways of the Lord.

God is on God’s way.

Isn’t this wonderful?

I do so love the anticipation the season of Advent brings and it is then all realized as we celebrate Christmas Eve and the organ blasts, the choir sings, we are gladdened by glad tidings.

And for twelve days, twelve days, we get to celebrate Christmas.

First, Christmas Day then the rest.

Twelve days acknowledging and wondering and worshipping Christ as a child and through Christ’s presentation at the temple.

Already, people are amazed at this child’s birth.

Simeon knows he and God’s people Israel are blessed by Jesus’ birth, Anna, a devout woman, knows she, and we, are blessed as well.

All of this excitement in the church year coupled with all the excitement of friends and family visits lead to such great feelings.

Such feelings that we are all blessed by Christ’s arrival.

And we wrap it all up with the arrival of the Magi, the Wise Men from the East, a major Feast Day in the Christian year.

And then, it is over.

We put things away, decorations and even feelings of bonhomie are placed in careful places, places where we know our things and our feelings are safe for one more year to come.

Routines return, we look forward to Christ’s arrival once more, in spirit and in the flesh; routines return, and sometimes, sometimes, mountains shoot up and  valleys are made low.

The feeling of Christmas though, the feeling remains well-remembered even if the shouts of those who trumpet its arrival, Christ’s arrival are now tempered and sometimes hard to hear.

I do love the church calendar, I love its rhythms and stories told through scripture found within.

It speaks to me of repetition, renewal at the start of each season.

I look forward to each season of Lent when it arrives just as I remember past seasons.

The calendar allows me to reminisce about pancake suppers held on Shrove Tuesdays, suppers when we’d bring our children down to the church on a weeknight for pancakes topped with gummy worms and whipped cream.

(And that was my order, never mind how my kids liked them!)

Along with reminiscing I look forward to a new Lent, with reading groups and giving things up and taking things on.

The church calendar allows us to look towards the past and the present and the future all at once.

All in one go.

And on this day, we remember the wilderness, the voices that sprang from it during Advent and now.

Now, we are in the wilderness along with John the Baptist.

Mark’s gospel has brought us.

The voices of a month ago told us we would be here and in the wilderness we hear this man and we confess our sins and we are baptized.

But.

We’ve already been baptized.

And I wonder.

When you think of the tens or the hundreds or the thousands John baptized in that wilderness, do you think of your own baptism?

When you think of Jesus on the banks of the Jordan or in the Jordan, do you think of your own baptism?

When you hear God say with Jesus, he is well pleased, do you know that God, with you, is well pleased?

That is renewal.

That is something to celebrate for today we celebrate not just Jesus’ baptism, not just those John the Baptizer baptized, but our own as well.

So, I hope you all brought your christening gowns because today, we are going to renew our baptism vows.

Today, we will look back to our baptism and whether you remember it or not, I certainly do not as I was an infant when I was baptized, and say yes.

All over again and if the Spirit moves you, we will say yes, I will say yes to my baptism and yes to my vows and yes to Jesus in my life because over and over God calls on us, to be in our lives, to dwell in our hearts.

Still, just what is it that we are renewing?

Do our vows expire?

No.

Does God need a reminder to love us?

No.

But I do still feel called to renew my vows.

Just as God seeks us out, continuously, I see the need to renew my vows, continuously.

I was at a funeral when I felt the call to come back home to the church.

Specifically, I was at a funeral when I felt the stirring once more that there is more to this life than just being.

I guess to put it simply, I was in a place remembering a person’s death that I felt called to live more fully once again.

I don’t think any of our lives are a straight line; there is no highway for us to travel down without exits and traffic jams and tie-ups along the way.

And for me, I took a rather long exit off the Christian highway for a number of years, 20 or so all total, I guess.

Yet it took the reminder of my own mortality to find an entryway back on that highway and begin again a path back towards acknowledging the eternal.

But it doesn’t always have to be this way, we need not shake ourselves back to the faith only when encountering the eternal.

In the act of worship, we should be asking ourselves, are we serving God and am I fulfilling my baptismal vows.

When we confess our sins, we should ask the same.

When we make peace with each other, we should understand that we are worthy of God’s love and because of God’s love we are capable of fulfilling our vows.

None of us is separate from God nor is anyone free from sin.

We cannot escape judgment and still we cannot escape the fulfilment of that which God wants for each of us: relationship with God and union with one another.

So then this act of renewing our vows is truly an act of renewal.

Renewal of words that form a promise, yes, but more so a renewal of our very lives, our very bodies, our very souls as Christians.

And it is truly a radical act for there is choice involved.

I felt the call, the urgings, the stirrings, the almost sense of helplessness before God; all of that brought me back to church and to Jesus, but ultimately, I had to choose.

I had to choose God on that day and many days in between.

And on this day, I will do so again.

I will renew my vows and I pray so too will you because for centuries and eons before centuries ago God has been calling out from the wilderness that God’s kingdom will someday come.

This morning, we acknowledge that fact and because of that fact we will make a promise to serve God and to serve each other.

And with us, God will be well pleased.

Amen.