Holy Baptism and Holy Communion are sacred moments when the invisible realities of God’s grace, forgiveness, and love become visible and tangible. The tension—the “gap”—between the kingdom of God revealed in Christ and the broken, often false world we experience, reminds us that faith calls us to meet that gap with compassion, sacrifice, and trust rather than seeking control or avoiding suffering. Through baptism, communion, and following Christ to the cross, we are invited to give our lives away, embrace what is real and holy, and discover that suffering and sacrifice are not the end but the path to true and everlasting life.

This is a rare day.

Three Holy baptisms, and soon we will celebrate Holy Communion…

Our two sacraments…

What is invisible and eternal, contained in the physical, visible.

In keeping with our faith and practice, the prayers of this assembly make real the elements of water, of bread and wine.

We see with our own eyes our prayers answered if but for a moment. 

This is real.

Sacraments are real, a moment when what is real appears before eyes grown accustomed to falsehood.

Every child is beloved of God, yet not every child is baptized.

Every man, every woman.

Every man, woman, and child is worthy of the bread of grace, the wine of forgiveness, yet not all receive Holy Communion. 

Our sacraments close the gap between what is real yet invisible and what is false but visible, between what we pray for and what we live; this we all know, and yet we often forget—faith lies in this gap.

the kingdom of God in Christ has already been revealed; the kingdom of this world set against it.

One real, the other false. 

One is ours through faith; the other is ours day by day. 

Ours is the question, the gap, to live according to what is real, 

For faith to close the gap with compassion, as Paul says so eloquently, 

To rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those who weep, to live in harmony with all, peaceably, not returning evil for evil.

Yet for our sake, speaking of our human longing to close this gap by our own power—when Jesus speaks what is real, the suffering the lies ahead—

For us Peter says “God forbid it, Lord. This must never happen to you.”

But it must happen because of the gap, because the gap is real.

Peter wants what we all want, for the power of God to set all things right, to put a visible end to the power of evil that defies God, to end human suffering, to overthrow tyrants, to set us free now, without suffering, no real cross to bear, compassion without sacrifice.  

We renounce the power of evil when we celebrate Holy Baptism, 

and it is this power of evil which Jesus rebukes Peter for, 

any who want to become my followers, 
let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.

He presents a choice as if it is a choice, and it is a choice, but not really.

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for Jesus’s sake will find it.  

This is real.  

Baptism is gaining life by losing it.

These two babies were given away today, given to God, and thus gained life, so too this grown man.

Holy baptism is real; Holy Communion is real; this is what Holy means…What is real is holy. 

So we seek what is holy, what is real, though we are beset by unreality day in and day out.  

It our cross to bear, the real truth that none of us has control of time, none protected from human struggle; 

our days are numbered; 

family fails us, friends betray us….our bodies are not eternal. 

The cross Jesus speaks of awaits us all, in one form or another, but each and every cross is the gap between what we long for, what we pray for, and life as we experience it.

Living a real life is the cross we bear, not pretending there is no gap, resisting the false illusion we can overcome with our own power, as Peter longs to do.

But God meets us there, in this gap, with real hope, with real joy, with sacrifices we make glad for the honor of it.

For us Jesus goes to the cross to show us the cross is not an end but a beginning, real, holy.  

We are here to give our lives away and to gain life, this is Holy Baptism.

We are here for grace because we all need real grace,
for forgiveness because we all need real forgiveness, this is Holy Communion. 

Today we see the invisible appear before our eyes, the gap closed for just a moment, and we call it Holy because it is real and true and good.

Aivon and Calvin and Shawn are beloved of God, as are we all.

The gap is real, but in this moment we see it filled, and this too is real, holy, sacred.

To live real lives is the cross we bear, to deny our longing for power and control, to accept suffering when it visits us, to make sacrifices for the sake of compassion, to follow Jesus Christ toward the cross and there to find real life everlasting.  

Thanks be to God.