We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” That is why Paul could also write in, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. In many ways, this is exactly what the Apostle Paul meant when he said in, “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. Remember that Jesus doesn’t live in time. Kairos moments occur when divine favor meets divine opportunity. It measures moments, the right moment, the opportune momentor even the perfect moment. The angel said, Do not fear Zachariah, your prayer has been heard and Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall. The second ancient word for time is kairos. Zach put’s on priestly uniform and goes inside the Holy Place and there encounters an angel at the altar of incense. In a very real sense, we share a great deal with John the baptist today for certainly we are unworthy of that which God offers us in Christ Jesus. Kairos moment an opportune time arranged by God’s for us. The identity declared at baptism, however, is only a word until it is revealed with convincing power in the unfolding story of our lives. ![]() ![]() At that moment, the smartest thing Peter could do was to get out of the boat. In Peter’s case, he was safer out on the water than in the boat. When Jesus says, Come, you’d better obey. So, why does baptism matter? Why was it important for Jesus to baptised? Simply because we are who God says we are. And it is the Lord himself who tells Peter to come to him on the water. At our baptism, we become the sons and daughters of God, not because we deserve it but because God claims us as such. In his birth, as in his baptism, as in his death, Jesus experienced the human experience. ![]() God acknowledged Jesus as His Son, not because Jesus had done anything to deserve that acknowledgement but simply because God identified him that way. Let me ask the question differently: what do we find most impossible to believe for our own lives? That God appears by means so familiar, we often miss him? That our baptisms bind us to all of humanity - not in theory, but in the flesh - such that you and I are kin, responsible for each other in ways we fail too often to honor? Or that we are God's Beloved - not because we've done anything to earn it, but because our Father insists on blessing us with His approval? You see, herein in lies the surprise for us today, not just in Jesus’ baptism but in ours as well.
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