Watermarks

Watermarks are included on a document to confirm its viability: on checks, for instance, or better stationery. Postage stamps often have watermarks that can be seen on their backs. Collectors use these to help identify the stamps they have before them. A watermark assures that the stamp is genuine and has accomplished that job for which it was created. Worshipers this weekend will be reminded of the time and occasion of their own watermarking, and will hear yet again how each person has been lovingly marked by God no matter what!

ISAIAH 43:1-7 was probably addressed to the recent exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon, mourning the loss of their homeland and their Temple, the supposedly indestructible symbol of their indestructible faith. God is telling them not to be afraid, not to give up, for God has called their names: even “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…” Israel/Judah is a rocky & arid land, with little contact with the sea. The Hebrew people were desert wanderers, and distrusted bodies of water–they rejoiced when Moses got them through the sea which speedily drowned their pursuers; Jonah began his adventure with a turbulent and threatening sea; and of course, Noah was lifted above the destroying flood in a divinely-designed ark. The remembrance of these formative stories gave the exiles strength when they were drowned in trouble…

A small reading, ACTS 8:14-17 is yet important as a watershed between Christianity as a Jewish sect and the world-religion which Jesus evidently intended. Those awful Samaritans had responded to the preaching of Philip and had been baptized! So Peter and John, bulwarks of the jealous Jerusalem congregation, went to check ’em out. Peter & John continued the work in Samaria because the Samaritans appeared more palatable, once watermarked by the Sign of God.

The Gospel account is read from the writings of LUKE, 3:15-17,21-22–the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptizer in the Jordan. This is significant for us, as it reminds us that the Lord was content to stand in line with the other sinners, a place he continues to hold through the ages. God spoke words of assurance to him through the descent of the Spirit like a dove…did everyone baptized hear such a claim, to be a child of God in God’s good pleasure?

We understand Baptism to be a sacrament, a Means of God’s Grace. In our baptism, we are marked as a Child of God, which gives God much pleasure. At the conclusion of a public baptism, the officiant often splashes the congregation with the baptismal water, saying “Remember that YOU are baptized–Rejoice”!

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

My blog comes to you every Tuesday in hopes that you’ll be prepared to hear the scriptural journey taken each weekend. Read about it at horacebrownking.com