Sept. 12, 2012

“dripping with the love of God”

Jacob smiled and giggled throughout the morning barely fitting into the 100 year-old white gown that had been worn by his great grandfather and four generations of children. Jacob was baptized at St. Andrew’s on Sunday, reminding us yet again of the blessings of this rite.

Jacob, as a babe in arms, shared in the rite that proclaims God’s love which names us all as God’s beloved. This indeed is God’s work, not ours. Jacob and all children who are baptized emphasize this truth. God has already claimed us in love. And Jacob, even as a young child, now lives into this gift, “dripping with the love of God”. Jacob joins us and all the saints and sinners, as we live in, with, under and through this grace of God.

So what is “dripping with the love of God” like? It is cross-shaped and Sprit sealed.

The cross in the place where God’s love reveals Divine Love that embraces the pain, suffering and marginalized of the world and says you are not alone. The cross reveals the movement of the Holy into the world (vertical lines) and the action of this love engaging the world and embracing it with wide arms of care (horizontal lines). The cross is where Jesus died at the hands of the powerful and violent. Yet God’s love embraced the world through Jesus’ open arms in order to say to those who are offended by the powerful and the violent, “You are not alone.”

We live dripping in the waters of baptism, for the Holy Spirit seals the deal and empowers us to engage the world, working with the power and hope of God to heal it with the baptismal compassion that drips from us; to love it through the baptismal care that pours off us; to restore it through the baptismal grace that flows through us; to reconcile it through the baptismal shalom that streams abundantly as we strive for justice and peace throughout the earth.

Jacob experienced this grace as water poured over his head and then was marked with the sign of the cross with oil. He joined us as a brother to live “dripping wet in the love of God”. I’m eager to see where it takes him.

And I wonder where these waters have taken you? Where are you dripping with God’s love for the sake of the world?”

Gently,

Pr E