3rd Sunday of Easter-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

 3^rd Sunday of Easter-Year A

April 23, 2023

 

A letter to Hugh Love McLaurin, III, upon the occasion of your baptism.

Dear Hugh,

        It’s the third Sunday of Easter, which means we are still celebrating, feasting for 50 days, and today we also have the deep joy of celebrating your baptism with you and your family.  Easter baptisms are really the best because they are very much buoyed up by the stories of Jesus’s appearances after his resurrection.  These stories are filled with the myriad ways that Jesus shows up for his followers after his death and resurrection, and how his appearance never fails to surprise them. 

        Last week, the no-longer-dead Jesus shows up in the locked room with his terrified disciples offering them his peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  This week, he journeys on the road to Emmaus as a stranger with his weary, confused, and disappointed disciples.  They share parts of their faith stories with each other, and when the disciples offer the affable stranger hospitality, they are surprised to discover that it is the Risen Christ who has been walking with them on their journey. 

The Easter season is chock full of surprises, and it reminds us that the life of faith, the life of the baptized mean that we, too, are to be open to being surprised by the Risen Christ. It reminds us of all the ways that he shows up unexpectedly in our lives, in and through the Church, and in our world.

In our reading today from Acts of the Apostles, we see the conclusion of Peter’s moving speech to a crowd in Jerusalem.  As a result of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter has been testifying to them that Jesus is the Messiah; the crowd is moved and ready, and so they ask Peter, “what should we do?” Peter urges them to repent—to “turn from what one has been and done”[i] and to be baptized, and scripture tells us that 3,000 people were baptized that day.  In writing about this conversion experience in Acts, another preacher writes, “ ‘What should we do’ (v.37) is exactly the question we should ask, not once or twice over the course of the Christian life, but every single day….What should we do?  Perhaps put on a new set of glasses so as to see the world in all its resurrected splendor.”[ii]

        Today, young Hugh, your parents and your godparents are standing before God and saying yes or your behalf.  Even before your birth, God has named and claimed you as God’s beloved, and your parents and godparents are accepting your belovedness.  They are making promises before God and the Church that they will raise you in the Christian faith, the community that will help you nurture and live into your belovedness.  That means that they will teach you how to see the world through these resurrection lenses; they will encourage you to grow into your own unique faith life and invite you to be open to being surprised by the Risen Christ when he shows up in your life. 

And we, the Church, make a promise to you today, also.  We promise that we will walk alongside you, we will gather with you, listening to and sharing the stories of our faith, breaking bread together, encouraging you when you need encouragement, challenging you when you need to be challenged, and comforting you when you are discouraged.  We will gather together with you over the years because we know that the Risen Christ shows up when we gather together and share the stories of our faith and break bread together. 

   You are already showing me glimpses of the surprising Risen Christ, sweet Hugh, in your beaming smile when you come forward for communion with your parents every Sunday.  I look forward to many more years of walking this way with you, and of us being surprised by the Risen Christ together in this place.

Your sister in Christ,

Melanie+

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[i] From the notes for this passage from Acts in the Jewish Annotated New Testament.  Ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler.  Oxford UP:  NYC, 2011. p 226.

[ii] Original quote by Karoline M. Lewis.  Found in the book Everyday Connections:  Reflections and Practices for Year A  Ed. Heidi Haverkamp. WJK: Louisville, 2022, p 427