Baptism by water, baptism by Spirit
Sermon for the first Sunday after Epiphany, or Jesus' baptism, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Everyone here this morning has been baptized, I assume. If you haven’t, come see me and we can arrange that. But it’s a safe assumption that everyone here has been baptized once in their life. Yet, we participate in other people’s baptisms, and if there aren’t any, we will recite and renew our baptismal covenant at least once a year, on this, the first Sunday after Epiphany. It’s not that our baptism has expired or gone stale. There’s no time limit on God’s eternal grace given to us. We perform this renewal to remind ourselves of the importance of baptism in our life, and review our part of the relationship with God that begins with baptism. As we will hear throughout this year in reading the Gospel of Luke, the kingdom of God is a central theme, which for Luke is imminent and nearby. We can almost reach out and touch i, it is that cl...