St. John's celebrates confirmations and renewal of Baptismal Vows and the reception of 30 people in 2007.

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We WILL, with God's help.

Bishop Suffragan, James Curry, June 2007

Often the meaning of what we say is conveyed by how we say it. For example – The Baptismal Covenant, which we will proclaim in just a few minutes, has us respond to questions about our commitments to Christ and his work with the simple answer: I will, with God’s help.

But we are able to say those same words in many ways: in affirmation, apathy, or looking for a way out, or even fear that God’s help may not be with us. But the truth of our Baptism is that God’s help – God’s own Spirit – is already with us. We have been united in Jesus and empowered by Jesus to do his work in the world. The same Spirit which we have been given in Baptism is the Spirit that descended upon Jesus at his Baptism; that lead him into the wilderness to establish his own identity; that was present with him when he began his ministry and teaching in Nazareth.

Saint Luke tells us when Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, returned to Galilee he went to the synagogue. There he was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he read the ancient words we heard today: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

When Jesus told the people gathered around him that that those words were fulfilled in their hearing, they were amazed that anyone would be so brash and bold as to claim God’s Spirit for himself. But Jesus did make that claim and every word and action of the Gospel reinforces his claim that the Spirit of the Lord God is upon him. In Faith we have come to discover that the full power of God, active in the world, is in Jesus. But even more amazing than that – in faith, we are able to know that the Holy Spirit which was in Jesus is his gift to all who choose to follow him. This is the testimony of Jesus himself when he says: The spirit of Truth lives with you and will be in you.

We are assured of that because the Risen Christ came to his disciples and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. As the Father has sent me so I send you.

The Spirit of the Lord God is Jesus’ own gift to his followers.

Jesus claimed the words of Isaiah for himself: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.” And Jesus makes us bold to make his words our own because we are his own.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us. And therefore we have the power to do the work of the Spirit:
• To bring good news to the poor
• To bind up the broken hearted
• To proclaim release to the captives and sight to the blind
• To let the oppressed go free
• To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

Today, as we gather in this service of praise and thanksgiving, hundreds of people will die as victims of terror and war in Iraq and around the globe, and thousands more will die of Malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, and starvation. Others will be dehumanized because of gender or religious conviction or sexual orientation. Violence and hatred, disease, oppression and depravation assault millions of people every day. This is the world in which we live – and the setting in which we claim our faith in God. Jesus came into our real world to bring the Good News that God is in the midst of this brokenness and suffering and sin – and will bring life even out of death.

In everything he did and said he proclaimed that God’s love is at work to create new life and hope. He incarnated that love: he lived it and died it and in his resurrection sealed its truth. And then he sent his friends and followers out into this real world to proclaim the same thing.

Last year, I met a man in Mozambique who has been a catechist, a teacher in the Church, for 50 years. His name was Gideon. He lived in a small village that had no water or electricity. He was a man of no formal education. His church was a three-sided lean-to made of cane sticks and covered with metal sheeting. For fifty years he has done the work of the Spirit in his village and among his people: preaching; interpreting scripture; leading bible study and prayer; gathering the people in worship, helping to organize the building of a health station; teaching others how to use mosquito netting so that infants and children could be protected from malaria bearing mosquitoes, caring for the sick, praying the dying, comforting mourners, and inviting others into the community of the church. He has continued doing these works of the Spirit in wartime and peace, during famine and plenty, in drought and during floods. It was a privilege to be with him. Immediately I was able to see the Holy Spirit in him. Our meeting was a wonderful encounter, but it was not a surprise. Because I believe that we are able to look into the face of each and every Christian and see the Holy Spirit there. That was true in the small village of Maundene, Mozambique and it is true here and now.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us because we have been anointed and sent to tell the story of God’s freeing and sustaining love to the people among whom we live. And to work in the world as Jesus did to bring real evidence of God’s love to others; to do acts of mercy and compassion to promote justice and peace. All of us, like the catechist Gideon, have skills and gifts within us that can bring hope and healing into our real and troubled world. Our great challenges are to trust the power of the Spirit of God that has been given to us and to let it work through us.

In this service of confirmation, Christians will stand among us, the community of the Church and publicly declare their identity as people of Jesus and people of the Holy Spirit. This service is, indeed, a celebration of the Spirit of the Lord God which is upon you and upon me. And it is a celebration, in anticipation, of the work all of us are sent to do in the world in the name of Jesus.

God’s help is assured. We have only to say: We will.

Amen.