On January 11th, we celebrated the Baptism of Our Lord, remembering the moment when Jesus himself stepped into the Jordan River and received God’s blessing: “You are my beloved.” In our service, we gave thanks for baptism and invited people forward for a beautiful act of remembrance—the tracing of the cross on their foreheads, accompanied by these words: “Remember that you are free to be loved and to love.”
What a gift baptism is! In those waters, God claims us as beloved children before we can do anything to earn it. Baptism is pure grace—for us, for everyone. But this gift also comes with a calling, a set of promises that shape how we live out our baptismal identity in the world.
As ELCA Lutherans, we make five commitments in baptism. We promise to live among God’s faithful people, gathering together in community because faith is not meant to be lived in isolation. We promise to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s Supper, being fed and sustained by God’s presence. We promise to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, sharing the love we’ve received with others. We promise to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve. And finally, we promise to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.
That last promise feels especially important today, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Dr. King understood that faith without justice is incomplete. He wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Our baptism connects us to every other person who bears God’s image. When we trace that cross on our foreheads and remember we are free to be loved and to love, we’re also remembering that this freedom calls us outward—to work for the flourishing of our neighbors, to challenge systems that oppress, to build the peaceable kingdom God dreams for us all.
Baptism isn’t just something that happened to us once. It’s a daily calling, a constant returning to the truth of who we are and whose we are. We are beloved. We are free. And we are sent into the world to live out these promises with courage, compassion, and commitment to justice.
Thanks be to God for the gift of baptism—for us, and for all people.