I suppose it is in our nature to believe that life is the most difficult for us now in our age. Things are moving so quickly. Technology that is dreamed of today is here tomorrow and obsolete the day after. The environment has many problems that need to be tackled. The governments of the world can’t seem to get along.
On a personal level we all face challenges. Friendships come and go. It is hard to know whom we should trust. People you once opened your heart to have betrayed and left you. Work and school seem to be more challenging and difficult every day.
Morality in the world appears to have fallen to an all-time low. Things that were once unquestionably wrong are now praised as noble. People are deserting the Lord and His church.
Yet as we join together in declaring, “Woe is me!” it may be good to pause and take a broader perspective. There was a time when things were much worse but God did not abandon His people.
In the days of Noah “the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence” (Genesis 6:11). At that time there were only eight believers in the whole world! At that time God chose to cleanse the world with a flood.
On the basis of 1 Peter 3:21 Martin Luther says Baptism is a greater flood than Noah’s! When we see all the corruption around us, we ought not to be blinded to our own personal corruption of the human heart. The corruption of our internal spirit and being is much more dangerous to us than the circumstances in which we live. But that internal corruption is washed away in the flood of Holy Baptism.
Your own personal flood happened when you were sanctified and cleansed “by the washing of water with the word” (Ephesians 5:26). Each day when you return to God in repentance, you return to your baptism. Jesus' life, death and resurrection is applied to you in baptism. You receive it by faith and live in it daily.
When you hear of crime and violence, when you feel overwhelmed by the world, when it seems that no one loves the Lord, remember He cradles you in the Ark of His Church and has cleansed you by the washing of water through the word!
Prayer: Lord, when difficult times surround me grant that I may feel secure as you float me above the flood waters in your loving care. Amen.
The Baptism of Jesus
Paolo Veronese 1528 – 1588
oil on canvas
Museum Palazzo Pitti, Florence
http://www.artbible.info/art/large/29.html
God’s richest blessings in Christ,
Pastor Philip Quardokus
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