"Accompanying
Spirit" Baptism of Jesus Jan 13 Matt 3:13-4:1
Call
to Worship (예배의 초청)
from the Iona Community
We call on the power of God to meet us in our
helplessness:
GOD IN OUR
THINKING, GOD IN OUR SPEAKING.
We call on the clarity of God to meet us in our confusion:
GOD IN OUR ACTING,
GOD IN OUR STILLNESS.
We call on the mercy of God to meet us in our
brokenness.
GOD IN OUR WAKING,
GOD IN OUR SLEEPING.
We call on the Spirit of God to meet us in our
division:
GOD IN OUR MEETING, GOD IN
OUR PARTING.
*Hymn #482 (찬송#68) "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty"
*Greetings of Peace (평화의 인사)
Let there
be peace on earth, AND LET IT BEGIN WITH
ME.
May peace be with you. AND
ALSO WITH YOU.
Hebrew
Scripture (구약성경) Psalm 55:1,4-8,16-17,22
(CEV)
1Listen, God, to my
prayer! Don't reject my request.
4MY HEART IS
RACING FAST, AND I AM AFRAID OF DYING.
5I AM TREMBLING
WITH FEAR, COMPLETELY TERRIFIED.
6I wish I had wings like
a dove, so I could fly far away and be at peace.
7I WOULD GO AND
LIVE IN SOME DISTANT DESERT.
8I would quickly find
shelter from howling winds and raging storms.
16I ASK FOR YOUR
HELP, LORD GOD, & YOU WILL
KEEP ME SAFE.
17Morning, noon, and
night you hear my concerns and my complaints.
22OUR LORD, WE BELONG TO YOU. WE TELL YOU WHAT
WORRIES US, AND YOU WON'T LET US FALL.
Choir
Anthem(성가대찬양) "Spirit
Song"
Greek
Scripture(신약성경) 마태복음Matthew 3:13-4:1 (CEV)
3:13Jesus
left Galilee and went to the
[I began by reading my letter to the
congregation announcing my plan to move on at the end of March, and inviting a
few moments of silence.]
The wilderness is wild. The desert
is deserted. Baptism involves more than a sweet sprinkling with water. When the Holy Spirit comes down, it's
sometimes hard to tell whether it's a dove or a bird of prey! Immediately after
Jesus' epiphany, when he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit coming down upon
him, when he heard the Voice saying "This is my own dear Son, and I am
pleased with him," IMMEDIATELY, that Spirit-bird harried him into the
desert so that the devil could test him. We BEGIN in God's love, with the
promise that we don't have to do anything to earn that love. Even before Jesus
begins his ministry, God announces, "I am pleased." And THEN we are
tested.
We might imagine that the
"Accompanying Spirit" – She who flies with us and keeps us on the Way
– would make the path smooth and comfortable. But as Jesus is our model, we
know that temptations and difficulties do not disappear. Just the opposite! When
God intends us to grow, to be transformed, we are thrust onto a road that we
might not choose to walk.
Matthew's Gospel seems
to soften the work of the Accompanying Spirit after Jesus' baptism. Luke says
the Spirit "turned him out" into the desert for temptation. And Mark
says she "cast him out," in the same way that Jesus would later cast
out demons!
C. S. Lewis once wrote
of the painful process implied by what may follow baptism. In his book Mere
Christianity, he compared Christians to a living house: God comes in to
rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what God's doing:...getting
the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that
those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently God starts
knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to
make sense. What on earth is God up to? The explanation is that God is building
quite a different house from the one you thought of--throwing out a new wing
here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.
You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but God is
building a palace and intends to come and live in it.
We've got members in this community
who face truly difficult challenges! Long-term health issues. Unemployment
that's lasted more than a year. Family members who have died, or who can't seem
to find the release of death. It might seem to be a threat to our faith in a
good God. But amazingly, some of the hardest hit have the deepest sense of the
accompanying Spirit!
I can't compare my struggles of the
past week to what these friends are going through, but I can tell you I have
seen the accompaniment of the Spirit as well. I received an unexpected letter
from one of our Heavenly Treasures shoppers who promises every July that she'll
visit us to see what we do on Sunday morning. She wrote, "I do promise in
the year 2008 I will make it to service. I hope when I come I will hear a good
sermon—the one you don't hear often, but when you do hear a good one—it sticks
for the rest of your days on earth... PS: Your sincerity makes me know there
are some good ministers. (smile)" And I received an amazing gift of an
illuminated page from a book in Farsi, with a dancing dervish (perhaps it's
Rumi!) These surprises lifted my spirits and helped me hold on to my faith that
God is with us in the journey. Like Jesus, we may take
the path the Spirit sets us on, and move forward in faith, knowing we won't
walk alone.
So,
no matter where we are today on our life's journey, no matter how bumpy our
road, or how much the future may look like a wilderness, we can dare to think
that God's got a part in this process. As Dr. Bernie Siegel's mother used to say
whenever something difficult would come along, "Something good will come
of this!"
Or
as Annie Johnson Flint has written in a poem entitled "What God Hath
Promised"
God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through.
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the laborer, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
Let us pray. "God of our weary
years, God of our silent fears, Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way,
Thou who hast by the might led us into the light; keep us forever in the path,
we pray." Fill us with the
blessings of new life. Open our hearts and minds to trust the Spirit to be our
companion, directing our steps as we move into the future. Amen.
