Pastor Mick's My Word January 11, 2010
		Activities
	This is the time of the year when the Church looks at the baptism of Jesus and remembers how that solitary action continues to have such a dynamic impact on the Body of Christ.  It is the foundation of a sacrament all churches recognize but I would like to suggest that it also reminds of an indispensible word for the Christian faith: principle. The dictionary tell us a principle is a fundamental truth or law that we use when we are reasoning something out or committing ourselves to a specific action.  Many principles make a code of conduct that gives a life both drive and direction.  A principle is the thing you stand with and when all else has abandoned you, your principles still stand with you.       The guiding principle for Jesus at the moment of his baptism was simple: God could be trusted.  At that moment, he is not trusting God to take away sin he does not have but to use his baptism as a sign to tell sinners Jesus is not repulsed by us.  Jesus carries the message of God’s receiving love and grace in his heart, through his ministry and to his cross. Some would say Jesus endured the insults and actions of his many enemies because he had what the apostle Paul called the peace of God which transcends all understanding.      Here, we must always be careful because a peace-filled life does not mean a trouble free life. Christ’s people can stand with God and still a job, lose a crop, take a child to the hospital or a loved one to the grave.  To stand with God does not mean you are exempt from anxiety but that God’s peace will guard you from letting anxiety take over your life. Troubles, after all, are like buzzards: just because they are circling over your head doesn’t mean they will be landing in your yard. The only way the buzzards land is if you break away from the flock; then they will come after you. When you leave God’s pastures, when you climb down from the rock and build on the sand; when you let go of godly places, ways and principles, you will either bow to life’s pressures or be carried away by them. Ignore the warnings around you, close your ears to the truth, laugh at the idea of a moral law, live as if there is no God and you will find yourself upside down in a ditch.      This happened to a man named Albert Speer, a high official in the Nazi government.  He was tried as a war criminal in 1946 and at one point he was asked if he had been aware of the concentration camp at Auschwitz, and he said this: “I did not investigate- for I did not want to know what has happening there…As an important member of the leadership of the Reich, I had to share the responsibility for all that happened.  I was inescapably contaminated morally; from fear of discovering something which might have made me turn from my course, I had closed my eyes.” The most solid principle of life is that God can be trusted. When we stand by Jesus in the waters of his baptism, we find what we need not just for the moment but for eternity.  The old chorus has the words, “And Jesus said, ‘Come to the waters, stand by my side.’” And when God says, “This is my Son, whom I love”, believe that God will see you and say “and you too.”