Sunday, January 20, 2008 - Isaiah 49:1-6

Last week, we celebrated the Baptism of our Lord and in doing so remembered and celebrated our own Baptism. Like at your Baptism, my Baptism was much more than just a ceremony where my parents announced the name of their son to be Martin Roger Eden. My Baptism was the day in which God announced to the world, “This is MY beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.”

This week, we hear that God’s love for us goes back even farther than our adoption into His family at Baptism. The prophet Isaiah told all the world, “The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.” That is, before I was born the Lord called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name and your name.

In his letter to Titus, Paul assures us that our eternal life and salvation was God’s plan “before the beginning of time.” In his letter to the Roman’s, Paul assures us that before the world was created God had each of you in mind.

When a mother is expecting, it is a common question to ask if you know if its a boy or a girl. Before the birth of our girls, we didn’t find out. We didn’t want to know.

However, there was Someone who did know. Not only did our Lord in heaven know that we would have girls, but He had, since the dawn of time, known the answer to the other question mothers always get: “When will the baby be born?”

For expectant parents, the questions continually fly through your mind: “Is it a boy or a girl?...Will it come early or late?...Will it be healthy or sick?”

We have no way of knowing any of these things. All that we can do is trust in the One who does know the answer to all those questions, and know that whether its a boy or a girl, whether it surprises us and comes early or makes us wait a little while longer, or whether the child is healthy or ill; no matter what the answer is to any of those questions, one truth remains: that child is God’s child who the Lord has called by name -- just like you are God’s child who He has called by name.

He has known you since before the creation of the world. He knew when you were going to be born. He knew what your name was going to be. And unless the Lord returns first, He knows on what day you are going to die.

Your death will be no more of an accident than your birth. From our perspective, sometimes people die, at what we perceive to be an inopportune time. Sometimes children are born at what we perceive to be an inopportune time.

But questions of life and death are not for us to answer. There is only one author of life. So also, there is only one author of eternal life. God not only determines our entrance into this world; but He ushers in our life of faith by bringing us to His Word and into His church in the waters of Holy Baptism.

And He alone determines the day on which we depart this life; and He sanctified the graves of His saints with the blood of Jesus Christ.

The One true God is not some vague, impersonal force of nature. We have a loving Father in heaven who calls us by name. He knows your name and makes mention of it like any father who dotes on the child that he loves.

That is what you are to Him. No matter how eloquent the words that we use to speak of a son or daughter, they pale in comparison to the perfect voice that speaks my name and speaks your name from the throne of the Most High. Amen.



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