Our Christmas and Samuel's Baptism

Hi all!

We hoped to settle into our Christmas season with a little sense of normalcy. Unfortunately,

it was not to be so.

Days before Christmas, Indiana experienced a serious cold snap that lasted a couple of days. The temperature dropping below zero, the weather wreaked havoc on an ill-prepared populace, including us. Water pipes burst in several apartments in our complex. Fortunately, our pipes were spared, but not our living room.

I (Jeff) was at home, with the kids and Tracy's parents. We noticed that water was soaking into our carpet, and we investigated. I couldn't find a source for the water in our apartment, so I knocked on the apartment next door. No one answered, but when I put my ear to the door, I could hear the water gushing. We moved our possessions to higher ground; nothing was lost. We were also the only ones home to inform the apartment office of what was happening in the apartments near us, which by this point had waterfalls pouring from their second floors. We feel quite fortunate and feel for our neighbors, who experienced far worse hardship this Christmas.

But we couldn't stay in our apartment while the professional restorers dried out our carpet. So we stayed in a hotel room from December 22nd through Christmas.

In fact, one night Tracy and I didn't even have the comfort of a hotel room. On the 23rd, Tracy was working late to prepare for Christmas Eve services, and I drove to Muncie to help her. But when we prepared to leave the church later that evening, the roads were so coated with slick, shiny ice that we couldn't drive our car up the shallow incline that took us to the main road. After slipping and sliding back into the church's parking lot, Tracy and I decided we had to spend the night in her office. We made the most of it. I happened to have an air mattress in the car, as well as a movie we could play on my computer, and we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation while stringing jingle bells for the kids at church to ring the next day. For all our distress, we insisted on having a happy Christmas. We spent Christmas morning in the lobby of the hotel, where they were happy to let us use their tree.

Our happiest moment of the Christmas season occurred on Sunday, December 28th. Samuel Peter Sitota Johannes was baptized and welcomed into the family of Christ. Tracy conducted Samuel's baptism, just as she had done for Shahra. Samuel is fortunate to have four sponsors for his baptism: Andy and Amy Nyren and Kelli and Dustan Smith. Andy and Amy are parents of Ella and fellow Ethiopian adoptive parents whom we met at Luther Seminary. Kelli and Dustan are good friends of ours in our church; their daughter Autumn is close to Shahra's age and their son Micah is close to Samuel's age.

As Samuel's baptismal candle, we used the candle that Samuel's birth mother passed to us when we met her. Below is the portion of the service we wrote ourselves to introduce Samuel's baptismal candle, which was read by Elisabeth Malzahn, a friend of ours and Pastor John's daughter:

Samuel. In a room in Hosanna, Ethiopia, your birth mother stood among other birth parents. Across from her, among other adoptive families, stood your forever parents. Your birth mother lit this candle as she and other birth parents said a prayer in Amharic: “Through God's divine plan our roads have crossed and these children have created a bond between us. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for your willingness to share our burden […] we are the birth parents but from now on the children are yours […] May the good Lord bless all your family.” Your birth mother stepped forward and embraced your forever mother and your forever father, passing to them this candle, as a blessing to you, Samuel, and your forever parents, who have devoted themselves to your care. Your forever parents replied, “Through God’s divine plan, our journeys have crossed and these your children have created a sacred bond between us […] May
God make us worthy to the measure of the gift that your children are for us. May the good Lord bless all your family.”

Today, we present this candle, a symbol of both passing parentage and indelible bonds, as your baptismal candle. We do this to remember that, even as your forever mother and forever father have chosen you for their own, they share their responsibility as parents with the Eternal Father, who chose you as a beloved child of God, and with this church community, who will help them raise you in the light of Christ. We light this candle, saying to you, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Jan. 4 Sermon (Happy New Year!!) John 1

If you look around, the holidays are over. Santa, who has been in the mall since he got off his float at the Macy’s day parade on Thanksgiving, is back at the North Pole with his elves. The Christmas trees are mostly put away, and advertisements for weight loss products are again in full swing. We’ve been preparing for the holidays for 2 months, and at the stroke of midnight on January 1st, it’s all over. I don’t know how many of you witnessed this for yourselves on New Year’s Eve. My family, like many, gathered around the TV with friends and watched Dick Clark and Ryan Secrest welcome in the new year with style and pizzazz, all sponsored by Nivea skin lotion. The anticipation rose. All night there was music and entertainment. We even witnessed the now obligatory New Year’s Eve marriage proposal from a recently returned Marine veteran to his beautiful girl. Then, at 11:55, everyone’s eyes turned up toward the big beautiful, crystallized light in the sky. We watched as it slowly began to drop down, then, it seemed like the whole world counted down until “Happy New Year!” Which, I have to admit seems like it is being welcomed with a bit more anxiety than new year’s past. For one golden moment, everyone cheered, strangers embraced on crowded street corners, friends toasted with Champaign. Then, at 12:05, it was all over. The lights went out on the giant ball, and everyone began to make their way back into the darkness. The party’s over and the celebration has come to an end. Time for resolutions, to take down the Christmas lights, time to settle in for the rest of the winter. Pack it up until next year.
But, I ask you, people of God, is that all there is? A short lived celebration to “remember the spirit of Christmas” before we’re engulfed by the cold dark realities of life and winter? For believers in the risen Christ, the celebration continues! The lights in Time Square may dim before 12:15 am, but our light, our life, our hope, shines on. Our human creations of “light” may dim, may fade, may go out of season. However, when we look at John 1:8 we are given a message: “He (John the Baptist) was not the light, he came only as a witness to the light. Human lights go out by 12:15 New Year’s day. Human celebrations don’t sustain us. This is because, family of God, WE ARE NOT THE LIGHT. Our “man made” light may be made to sparkle with the help of crystals, it may glimmer in the night sky like magic…it may even give us a celebratory feeling. But eventually, human light begins to dim. The crystals break, the confetti falls, and the party is over. Back to worries about packing up Christmas trees, and tangled LED lights and plastic red nosed reindeer. Keep them safe in boxes until next year, when we bring it out again.
But fellow believers, God’s celebration doesn’t end with the stroke of midnight. WE don’t have to pack up our light or feel the lull after the holidays. Our party continues. And the grand master of ceremonies tells us exactly how to party on. In our Gospel, John the Baptist tells us how to have the biggest celebration of all “prepare the way of the Lord! We have received one blessing after another!” Unlike Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, we aren’t mere spectators, the MC gives us a part in the party—we are to make straight our paths, to recognize that the Savior has arrived. This isn’t a temporary celebration, a break from our everyday lives—this message is to BECOME our lives, it BREAKS the patterns of the past, and RENEWS us with eternal hope, with an ETERNAL light.
Prepare for the Lord. Not only do we receive this message, we are empowered to spread the Gospel to all people, to make the party grow. How will you let the people in your life know that this party is for them? Because there are so many out there who want to be a part of this celebration. They LONG for a feeling of belonging: why else would so many want to create a party during the holidays? What gifts has God given you to spread the good news of great joy, to tell the world that Christ’s celebration is never over? Or maybe YOU need to hear that message, that God invites YOU to the table, every week, to commune with your brothers and sisters in Christ. You don’t feel like a party? Your sins are too many? Your life not in order yet? Not enough faith? It’s not the right time? Dear friends, when we feel most alone, most filled with doubt, most immersed in sin--that it is the absolute right time to join this eternal celebration. Lights won’t be dimmed when it gets too late, or too sin filled, or too painful. The host will not ask you to leave if you’re too sad or difficult, or lacking the right look.
The party isn’t complete unless you are here. God needs your gifts, your sins, your broken, yet healed being to be with Him. The table is ready, the lights are on, and a meal has been prepared for you. Take and eat, take and drink. The light shines in the darkness, and has OVERCOME it. AMEN.