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FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

January 12, 2025 10:00 AM

THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD

GATHERING FOR WORSHIP

As the bell sounds, may we quiet ourselves and allow the music of the  prelude to lead us into a worshipful place in our hearts and minds.

* Those who are able, please stand.

Prelude Down to the River to Pray with  Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying

Traditional Spiritual and Ken Medema, arr. Mary McDonald

Welcome and Announcements

Choral Introit

Call to Worship (Psalm 29)

Leader: Give to our God, O heavenly beings,

People: Give to our God glory and strength.

Leader: Give to our God a glorious name;

People: We worship our God in holy splendor.

Leader: May our God give strength to the people!

People: May the Lord bless the people with peace!

*Opening Hymn What Was Your Vow and Vision

Prayer of Invocation

Creating, Calling, and Faithful God, we come to this time and place  to be with you, to worship you, and to learn from you. May our time  together be like your creation of light in the darkness that you called  good. May it be that you would call us good while we respond to your  call and as we listen to you. Amen.

SHARING GOD’S WORD

Scripture Reading Mark 1:4-11 Pew Bible Page 812  Leader: This is the Word of the Lord.

People: Thanks be to God.

Musical Interlude

THE COMMUNITY AT PRAYER

Sharing of Joys and Concerns

In all our joys and in all our concerns, may we be ever mindful of the   presence of God among us, and to see new possibilities in faith.

Call to Prayer (#593) Lead Me, Lord

Lead me, Lord, lead me in thy righteousness, make thy way plain before  my face. For it is thou, Lord, thou, Lord, only, that makest me dwell in safety.

Pastoral Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our  debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

*Hymn of Preparation Shall We Gather at the River

(verses 1 & 2)

SERMON White as Snow Rev. Ritts

THE SERVICE OF OFFERING

Collection and Offertory

*The Doxology (#46)

* Unison Prayer of Dedication

Loving God, may these gifts reveal to us and to others the Light that is  Jesus. And may this Light lead us on into new and challenging ways of  living and serving. Amen.

WE GO FORTH TO SERVE

Hymn of Parting We, Your People, God Confessing

Benediction (Psalm 67:1-2)

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon  us, that his way may be known upon earth, his saving power among all  nations.

All: We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, In the name of Christ. Amen.

Congregational Response Go Now in Peace

Go now in peace. Never be afraid, God will go with you each hour of every  day. Go now in faith, steadfast, strong and true. Know He will guide you in  all you do. Go now in love, and show you believe. Reach out to others so all

the world can see. God will be there, watching from above. Go now in  peace, in faith, and in love.

POSTLUDE Wade in the Water

Traditional Spiritual, arr. Mark Hayes

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WHITE AS SNOW

A reading: “Snow in the Desert"

(Terry Anderson, AN)

When I think of water, power comes to mind - the power of a few million snowflakes containing a bare quarter-inch of moisture, the power they have to take a bland desert and decorate it with whiteness and raise up almost instantaneous beauty in the forms of yellow, purple, and red flowers.  Where do they come from, how do those blossoms happen so quickly?  A late spring snowstorm and there they are overnight, in the wake of the storm.  Overnight they appear - so little moisture, so little time, yet great and beautiful things happen.

Last Sunday we brought the wise men to Bethlehem to visit the Christ Child, challenging all of  us to be in touch with that yearning for active hope that wells up deep inside us.  God is calling us forth.

Today we fast-forward 30 years in Jesus' life and join him at his meeting up with his cousin, John who baptizes Jesus in the river Jordan.  A spiritual connection is celebrated and symbolized.

The yearning we feel inside, for peace, for balance, for meaning pulls us toward God.  God, likewise, reaches out to us, wherever we may be.

For Jesus, it came while he was living and working as a carpenter in his hometown of Nazareth in Galilee.  He was 30 years old.  We can only imagine what he must have been thinking, what compelled him to leave home, travel some 50 miles down into Judea to see his cousin, John, preaching and baptizing along the River Jordan.

And, of course, for many, as Paul says, baptism is for “repentance" - so why would Jesus, sinless and pure in some theologies, need to be baptized?  Whatever our understanding of the humanity of Jesus, the word repent simply means “to make a turn, to turn around" - and this Jesus was certainly about to do.

Baptism for us is the symbolic act of washing away the sins of our past; in the baptism of infants in our protestant understanding, baptism symbolizes the purity of this new born child placed in our care.

We vow, as adults being baptized, to make a conscious turn away from negative forces around and within us.

As children, our parents took a vow to help us learn how to turn away from those forces.

When baptism takes place, we reach out for help from above and beyond ourselves.

Jesus traveled to the River Jordan.

We all seek and may even travel to find that special power so profound in our own individual lives.

God, however, is always with us, closeby; wherever we are, reaching out to take our hands, pour some water on us and renew that connection, once again.

Baptism can be just that kind of powerful experience.

For Jesus, it was the turning point in his life.  After this encounter with John and the Holy Spirit, he heads off into the wilderness for his 40 days of facing his human weaknesses..

For some, the turn, the connection may take place at such a formal baptism - whatever the form (sprinkling, pouring or immersion); for others baptism may happen whenever we feel that deep connection or re-connection to a power that will redirect our lives - the Holy Spirit, the “snow” falling upon us.

The hope, reaching out in the faith that fulfillment will follow, is realized; “the heart is strangely warmed" as Methodist founder John Wesley wrote, and as I experienced in my own life for the first time back in my seminary days.

My own “turning point.” It was truly a dark night for my soul.

in the midst of my own desert wilderness:  my father had just died, at the age of 46, in my first 2 months of seminary. My mother wanted to know why God would take this man who had been a faithful servant. My faith shattered and in doubt, confused about my calling.

Then, driving along in the car - a total, overwhelming, warm feeling flowing through me - words can't describe it - a feeling of peace and acceptance. the pieces of my entire life just fell together.

I got in step and followed the prescribed path back at seminary   - then I met Judy and the real calling in my ministry began - snow falling upon me, awakening my blossoming soul! And it continues to this day!

Baptism in our tradition, marks the renewing and turning of lives from self-guided tours to God- directed adventures.

And it's not as if we're simply being led.  We are a part of the process.  Our minds, our hearts, our wills are all in-sink, gears moving together, moving us in the dance of God's glory.

So back to our opening analogy.

The seed of God's Spirit is in us, just beneath the surface of the desert that is often our lives;

Awaiting the snow-pure waters of Baptism to bring us alive in the Holy Spirit.

The snow falls, the connection is made, water, seed, the “son's" warmth, life's surrounding nutrients, and the seed begins to sprout and the world is a brighter place and nothing is ever the same again.

The snow is everfalling upon us.  God is reaching out to us all around.

Realities in nature bring God's spirit floating down toward us.  We so often fail to acknowledge, let alone, feel the presence of God in the small things.

The “big” events are easy: Rainbows, storms and beautiful sunsets more easily lend themselves to our label of: “Now that's the Presence of God," but not those little snowflakes, “ordinary miracles” or tree-buds, or water to drink, or fire that warms us.  It's all so very miraculous if we have and can maintain the eyes to see!

God’s snowflakes are falling upon our deserts all the time!!

People, places, events, everything in life is, I believe, ultimately a connection or message from God.

We must create memory cues to enable us to always be thinking in a soulful way - always looking for the messages in the snowfalls in the midst of our deserts.

The pathway to the original baptism and the continuing baptisms in our lives is simple, yet is often fraught with peril.

We open our hearts to that yearning for the presence of God, that desire, even ache at times, for “something," with the expectation of fulfillment - the hope that arises out of faith.

Then, with hand (heart and soul) outstretched, we must open our minds, our eyes and our ears, all of our senses, for the presence of God's Holy Spirit floating down to us like snowflakes from above, or like a dove on the wing - to use Mark's analogy.

Once connected, awareness dawns, life shifts, we turn and new challenges and opportunities await us.

For many of us these snowfalls and sproutings come to us in painful ways.  That water of baptism can be cold and shocking.  The snow is pure and white at first, but cold, and may turn dingy and slushy before the sprouting takes place.

Facing our yearning, opening our hearts, turning from what we know and what is familiar is rarely an easy undertaking.  To make the connection is to give up a certain illusionary control we may think we have over our lives.  We seldom have any real control, and yet we have the power and natural inclination TO seek, TO open, TO receive.

And to expand our horizons here, as we look at our world situation today, there is a tremendous need for the snow of purity to fall down upon the deserts of far away places and bring forth the blossoms of peace rather than the plumes of war.

Let us never accept completely what anyone may say about what appears to be a lifeless desert, no matter where the desert may be.

There is a seed within us all, placed there at birth.

If we've yet to discover it and see its blossom, may we hope with faith that will know fulfillment;

If the desert has dried up a bit, the blossom faded, may we re-awaken our lives to God’s snow falling all around.

The snow falls on the desert and miracles appear.

so little moisture, so little time, yet great and beautiful things happen.