This sermon was preached at Glenwood and Canoe Ridge Lutheran Churches, Decorah, Iowa on January 12, 2020. If you’d prefer to listen to it, find it at https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson/.
In worship, we both celebrated the Baptism of Our Lord and marked the 1oth anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. The sermon is based on the assigned readings for the day (Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Matthew 3:13-17) and draws heavily on A Witness: The Haiti Earthquake, a Song, Death, and Resurrection by Renee Splichal Larson. May God comfort all who grieve this day.
Isaiah 42:1-9
1Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. 2He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; 3a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. 4He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
5Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, 7to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. 8I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. 9See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
Psalm 29
1Ascribe to the Lord, you gods, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 2Ascribe to the Lord the glory due God’s name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. 3The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord is upon the mighty waters. 4The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor. 5The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon; 6the Lord makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox. 7The voice of the Lord bursts forth in lightning flashes. 8The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. 9The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare. And in the temple of the Lord all are crying, “Glory!” 10The Lord sits enthroned above the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forevermore. 11O Lord, give strength to your people; give them, O Lord, the blessings of peace.
Matthew 3:13-17
13Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Pastor Renee Splichal Larson’s book, A Witness, is, in her own words, a story about death and resurrection, the suffering and faith of the Haitian people, despair and healing, and the power and grace of God. This is a story about survival, it is a witness to a song, and a confession of the profound mystery that in Christ, new life comes forth from death and despair (p. xiv).
Ten years ago today, Renee, her husband Ben, and Ben’s cousin Jon, woke up in Haiti. They were seminary students at the time, in Haiti as part of a J-term trip to live with and learn from the people of a new Lutheran church there. There is no adequate language to describe 4:53 p.m., January 12, 2010, Renee writes. The world ended. A haze of concrete dust blanketed the city. As far as my eyes could see, buildings lay in rubble (p. 54, 56).
Separated from Ben as the world crashed down around them, Renee finally heard his voice through the rubble and the chaos. She writes, I started to yell and call out for him, but I didn’t want to interrupt his song. It was so sweet, so in tune, and sad. His voice was strong enough for me to hear even through the layers of concrete between us. He was not just singing for me. He was singing for his Lord, for Jon, for the Haitians, and for each one of us. I knew I had missed part of what he sang, but I heard this whole verse of his witness:
O Lamb of God, you bear the sin of all the world away;
Eternal peace with God you made, God’s peace to us we pray.
When he finished his song, I held my breath and strained to hear more. There was nothing. No more song (p. 57).
Ben Splichal Larson died alongside hundreds of thousands of God’s beloved. That night, buildings continued to fall in the distance as the aftershocks continued. Renee writes, among…the cries of parents losing children and husbands losing wives and wives losing husbands, I could hear one powerful voice that carried over all else. It was the voice of one woman singing. She was at the center of the lot. Many other women were gathered around her, like Mary sitting at the feet of Christ. This woman sang hymn after hymn after hymn all night long. Sometimes others would join her, and the whole lot would become a chorus of saints raising our voices to our Creator. I could feel the music deep in my chest welling up into my throat as I hummed along to the hymns I recognized. Occasionally the singing would stop, but only so that people could pray out loud. This singer, a daughter of God most high, my sister in Christ, carried me through the night with her song that joined Ben’s dying song (p. 62).
The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor, the psalmist writes. The voice of the Lord is a voice of beauty, a voice of glory. The voice of the Lord sings through the night, in the midst of deepest death and sorrow, in the face of the unimaginable. The voice of the Lord carries us, claims us, binds us together, joins us as one for the sake of peace.
God’s peace to us we pray.
On this day when we celebrate the baptism of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we trust that in baptism we are united with him and with one another. In baptism, we’re given a song to sing, a story to tell, a lens through which to view the world.
The song we sing is a song of resurrection; it declares new life emerging from deepest death.
The story we tell is a story of healing and forgiveness, bringing out from the dungeon of despair those who sit in darkness.
The lens through which we view the world is the lens of grace, faithfully bringing forth justice without fainting or being crushed, declaring new things, new life, springing forth even now.
Fires burn.
Missiles strike.
Partisan politics divide.
Disease threatens.
In baptism, we see the light of Christ in the faces of the ones we love and the ones we despise, the ones we know better than we know ourselves and the ones we have yet to meet, the ones we would do anything to protect and empower and the ones we are reluctant to engage. Baptism makes us one.
Baptism calls us together to see one another—to see this whole world—as beloved.
Baptism assures us that the death and destruction of fires, and missiles, and partisan politics, and disease will never have the final word.
Ben’s funeral was held in the CFL at Luther College. Renee writes, Right before the service, about one hundred of us gathered in a choir room to pray. When it was time to walk out, I felt once again that I could not do it. People waited patiently for me to gather my courage. Finally, I took a breath and said, “It’s time to sing,” and we all walked out together singing “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me” (p. 82).
When we cannot find our courage, it’s time to sing. When we face what we cannot imagine we’ll survive, it’s time to tell the story. When we feel hopeless about a world at war, it’s time to look through that lens we’ve been given.
There is one faithfully bringing forth justice without fainting or being crushed. There is one proclaiming freedom from the dungeon of despair. There is one singing hymns throughout the longest night—declaring new life for us all.
Jesus is the one who walks with us when the earth shakes and the world as we know it ends. Jesus is our story. Jesus is our song.
Amen.
Order A Witness here: https://wipfandstock.com/a-witness.html
Singing. Singing is the way to healing and the way for us to feel as one! Thank you so much for this healing message of baptism.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Linda!