Celebrating the Good News of Easter
In the Easter season, we celebrate the boundless love and transformative power of Jesus Christ's resurrection. This year, Easter shared a date with Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, encouraging us to consider the special hope and affirmation that Easter offers people are marginalized for their gender or sexuality identity. No binary or boundary, even between life and death, could succeed in separating God's love from humankind. Despite the horror of Good Friday, God doesn't abandon humanity to death and despair.On Easter Sunday, my church in Lakewood Ranch, FL (pictured above) celebrated the baptism of three young children, all various ages in one family. Paul writes that baptism symbolizes our dying with Christ and receiving new life in him. Before any water was poured over the heads of the candidates for baptism, each one answered a question from Belonging to God: A First Catechism. The study catechism helps us understand the mysteries of the Gospel in plain language.When the pastor asked the youngest, "Who are you?", she replied, "I am a child of God." The second answered, "What does it mean to be a child of God?" by stating, "That I belong to God, who loves me." After the third was asked, "What makes you a child of God?", he responded, "Grace -- God's free gift of love that I do not deserve and cannot earn."At the celebration of a baptism, members of the church make promises to surround the one receiving the sacrament with God's love. The promises of baptism do not waver as children grow and change. Whether or not a child graduates from high school, changes their name, adopts new pronouns or faces any other life transition, all children of God receive help through those transitions with the support of their spiritual family. As the study catechism reminds us, we can't earn God's grace or our place in the family. The sacraments, free gifts of grace, assure us of love that endures forever.As believers sharing one baptism, we share milestones and joys with one another, especially a loving relationship or a new name that feels more fitting than the one given at birth. By learning more about one another, we connect more deeply and build stronger relationships across the family of God. We can express gratitude to siblings in Christ that choose to live openly in a world that frequently discourages authenticity. As an older sibling might look after another, we seek out ways to create safer, more inclusive communities for all of God's children.The PC(USA)'s "Brief Statement of Faith" writes beautifully of our belonging:
"In life and in death we belong to God. Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel, whom alone we worship and serve."
The waters of baptism immerse us in love that runs deeper than anything in this world. Wherever our humanity has been devalued, disrespected or unseen, the grace of Jesus Christ forever embraces us so that we may worship and serve the Lord with joy like the disciples must have felt on that first Easter.