Baptism Sermon Benjamin Enoch Parker Job 38, Heb. 5  October  18, 2009 Kingston Presbyterian Church, Greensburg, IN 

God gives Job a tour of the known universe. Our universe has vastly expanded. We can click on a computer and see pictures whose light has taken almost the entire history of the universe to reach us. We have seen into the structure of our heredity. In the immensity of this cosmos, God is looking at us, in deep focus, because Benjamin Enoch Parker is joined to the church of Jesus Christ. Lately, I picked up up a new book for the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing, Rocket Men. One of the striking thing is that taciturn engineers turned into poets when they looked at the earth from the lunar perspective. One said (274) that it looked like a Christmas tree ornament, so fragile and colorful in a black background. God see the globe as a whole, but God sees us as individual as well; so we are never merely statistics in a pattern, but always a unique creation. Out of the entire universe, God is paying special attention to the sacrament of baptism in Kingston Presbyterian Church.

 

Both of this boy's name are Old Testament names. Benjamin is a powerful name, the son of the right hand, the side of right and might. Benjamin would be the name of a tribe of Israel from whom sprang its first king, Saul. The name Enoch is more complicated. One instance of the name is the father of the ancient Methuselah who walked with God and was taken up by God. It has the sense of someone devoted or dedicated but it could also be a play on words as an enlightened one, a teacher perhaps.This is more than a dedication. Baptism brings him from the water into a new life, even at his young age. All of his life, he can face the east, the rising son that marks that God's mercies are new every morning. Maybe he will live into the 22nd Century and continue to live in the presence of God in heaven.

 

As Hebrews says, we need instruction in the faith to match our stage of development. just as Benjamin can handle milk right away, we can provide him spiritual sustenance in a way he can handle. As he grows, as he can handle sterner stuff, so too will his faith have a chance to mature and grow. Jesus can deal gently with us, even when we are the ignorant and the wayward. Baptism will not make him perfect, but it opens a door for him to find reconciliation time and time again. Baptism lasts a lifetime. Its beacon led his folks from Ohio to the place of Lola's baptism and their wedding. Its beacon can light the way of his life, and ours. It shines a light on this. God chooses. elects, selects us to be adopted into a new family, the household of God's very own. Benjamin did not choose to be born, to be named, to be a citizen of the United States. these are givens in his young life. God has reached out to grasp his little fingers, and as you know, a baby can hold on tight. As he grows, we know that he lives in the light of baptism, in a life claimed by God's path as shown in Jesus, the light of the world.

 

I always imagine that heaven takes a breath today. I imagine that that great cloud of witnesses, that gathering of the tribes, strains forward to look at the baptism of Benjamin this morning, ancestors near and far great grandparents and those distant in time beaming proud smiles as another citizen of the kingdom of heaven is added to the divine roll call. He is part of the communion of saints, as he is brother to all of this creation of God.