RCL Year C, Proper 13
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14 and 2:18-23, Psalm 49:1-11, Colossians 3:1-11,
Saint Luke 12:13-21
Not two hours after he was born, I visited Lucas Paul, his mother, and his father. And as he lay upon his mother’s lap, sleeping and oh so quiet, I thought about what was in store for him, the choices he would make, the consequences of those choices, and how he would in his own way begin to grapple with the responsibility that he will have to take to be accounted healthy and whole.
Today we present him to the Lord in Holy Baptism, where, as we shall hear, he will be baptized into the death of Jesus Christ so that he may live in the power of his resurrection. Like Jesus, and like all of us, he undergoes a death in order to undergo a resurrection. That journey is his most important responsibility, the one that will take the entirety of his life.
As we heard in the Epistle to the Colossians, “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”[1] Your life hasn’t disappeared. Your life is sealed with Christ. You are made Christ’s and Christ’s own forever. You are his. And so will be Lucas Paul.
For people just beginning to feel their way along in that relationship, it can be very scary. In fact, some flee. But there’s no need to be scared. There’s no need for that at all. Your true home is with him. There’s no need to flee, for “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
I find that reassuring. Beyond what we know is God who has and continues to reveal himself as loving and merciful and who converses with us tenderly to win us and to keep us his forever.
[1] Colossians 3:3.
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