1 Cor. 9: 1I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3and all ate the same spiritual food, 4and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
How are you named?
This is the very first question we ask in the liturgy of Holy Baptism.
In many ways, every baptism is the same. God’s name and Word combined with water in making us children of God.
Except that very first question makes every baptism different.
How are you named?
Here: God made you His child, forgives your sin, unites you to Christ. Here: you receive the sign of the holy cross both upon your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.
Every baptism is the same and different.
Just like every Lord’s Supper is the same and different and just like every church service is nearly the same and completely different.
Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forevermore, but you aren’t.
Your past week, or day or month or year, with its burdens and challenges, has been different than the one before that.
Your need for forgiveness or for God to be your Rock and Refuge is constant, but your need for forgiveness and help and healing and strength and protection in specific and particular ways changes constantly.
Your desire to praise and thank Him and glorify Him, and your need to hear from Him and be loved by Him and to ask Him for help is the same and it’s a little different, too.
How are you named?
Our Lord names Himself. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You receive His name in baptism and again today in Church.
But in this question: how are you named – something else and amazingly revealed. That He who gives you His name, now also has taken on your name.
Your name is written in His book. The Lambs book of life.
Your name is engraved on His hands.
When your name is mentioned in heaven before God and the angels and archangels,
Our Lord says, “Yes, I am their God,”
God says, “I am their Father,”
Jesus says, “I am their brother and Savior,”
The Spirit says, “I am their Comforter and Helper and Advocate.”
This will not change, Jesus will not change, that’s going to the same, but we can change.
Our Epistle is warning that for our fathers and mother in the exodus, all were saved, all were baptized, all ate and drank spiritual food and spiritual drink from the Rock, and the Rock was Christ, but not stayed saved.
With most of them, God was not pleased.
We can deny Him. “He’s not my rock!”
We can walk or run away from Him. “He’s not my refuge,”
We who said, “I believe,” can say, “I do not believe anymore.”
We don’t believe in “once saved, always saved.”
We believe God’s love is sure and strong, that Jesus’ death saved us 2,000 years ago, that His saving death is delivered to us in baptism and Word and Supper in this life and here and now, today.
All that is true for all of us. And all that love must be received in personal faith.
“I believe,” faith
And all of us also have a name and I, Christopher can say, “I don’t care,”
I can say, “I don’t love you, God,”
God is love and He is strong and He is fortress and deliverer. He is that for everyone, *all* mentioned in our Epistle Reading.
But Psalm 18, portions of which is our introit for today, exercises our personal faith, that we who have been named in Him can say,
I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer.
Those are titles and works of God, but they are not meant to be generic works.
Just like Church, even when we’re saying the same thing as we had, or saying the same thing as everyone else, is not generic.
God is not a generic God, He is your God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, isn’t ashamed to be called your God and Father and Savior and Brother and Comforter.
He knows your name and your troubles.
He knows the “why’s” of your life – why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to my loved one.
He knows your feelings of inadequacy in your family and in your work.
He knows your busyness and how you don’t think you’re accomplishing all that much, that you feel like you’re always running on a treadmill, tired but getting nowhere.
He knows your feelings of loneliness or frustration or disappointment and He knows how you are treated unfairly or discriminated against.
He who you say is “my rock,” was struck in the side for the Old Testament people to drink out of. St. Paul says that was Rock was Christ.
And we know that He was struck in the side and blood and water poured out.
And we know that He who we esteemed stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, was pierced for our transgressions; and crushed for our iniquities.
He knows your name. He loves you,
So say today, “I love you, O Lord, my strength,”
He is rock, so say again today, you are “my rock.”
He is deliverer as He was delivered over to give up His body and blood on the cross and delivers the forgiveness, life and salvation He won for you there here today in His body and blood.
So say, “He is my deliverer.”
Our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Let’s keep believing and being blessed in His name.
My Rock, My Refuge, My strength, My Jesus.