Sermon Tone Analysis

Hey Alexa

Smart home devices have changed the way we live.

The smart speakers provide convenient access to music, control over smart home devices, and quick answers to questions – they can be quite helpful.

But these devices are far from perfect.

Over the Christmas holiday, Amazon scrambled to reconfigure Alexa’s information when a viral tweet revealed that a 10-year-old had been encouraged to play the penny challenge.

Anybody do that?

The penny challenge is the stuff of high school thrill seekers who touch a penny to the prongs of a phone charger half-connected to a wall outlet.

The moment I describe it is the moment somebody tries it.

Don’t.

Bad things happen.

Amazon revealed that, over time, Alexa has been adjusted on occasion when questions are asked that lead to high risk behavior.

What was fascinating about this 10-year-old is that Alexa got the information from a “don’t do this at home” page gleaned from the internet.

But Alexa isn’t simply for pranksters and dangerous games.

A recent study done by the University of Nebraska found that older adults living by themselves who were introduced to an Amazon Echo for eight weeks found that they were less lonely at the end of the study.

Over the course of the 8 weeks, the adults who reported they were less lonely also revealed that the daily questions they were asking Alexa increasingly treated Alexa as if she had human qualities.

Many of the study participants acknowledged that when they woke up in the morning, they would great Alexa with “Good Morning”.

This correlated with reductions in loneliness.

I don’t have Alexa.

I have Google.

If I ask Google, “where is Jesus?,” you know what the answer is? Nothing.

Multiple attempts at asking Google “where is Jesus?” ended in failure.

All of the results for asking that question, were met with answers as if I had asked “Who is Jesus?”

There were hundreds or thousands of different responses for “Who is Jesus?”, but absolutely nothing about “where is Jesus?”

“Who is Jesus?” is closely connected to “Where is Jesus?” in the Bible.

This is another of those areas that took me a long time to figure out.

We spend a lot of time answering the “Who is Jesus?” question.. not just for ourselves and our friends and our families.

It’s an important question.

But fundamental to the “Who is Jesus?” is “Where is Jesus?”

And I would surmise that most of the time when we think about talk about Jesus, we’re like Alexa… we can tell you all day long about “Who is Jesus?”

We can debate and discussion his life, his death, his resurrection.

But we are less comfortable talking about “where is Jesus?”

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to help Alexa.

If Amazon is watching, maybe Alexa can learn a thing or two.

Where we’ve been

At the beginning of 2021, we began a journey through Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.

Martin Luther wrote the Small Catechism after visiting towns around where he was a pastor and observed that people not only did not know their Bibles, people… good church people… didn’t know the basics of what it meant to be and live as a Christian.

Catechism simply means instruction.

Luther sat down and seemed to ask himself, “what are the basic necessities for living as a Christian on God’s green earth?”

We have covered 3 of the 4 sections in his Small Catechism: The Ten Commandments, The Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer.

Again.. Luther wasn’t making stuff up.

Everything Luther wrote came straight out of the Bible.

And that’s what we are doing.

Over the next six weeks, “Hey Alexa, Where is Jesus?” will take us through the fourth section of Luther’s Small Catechism.

Baptism, the Lord’s Table, Confession/Forgiveness, and Community.. all basics of the Christian experience and all places where Jesus can be found.. or rather, where Jesus finds us.

And the first place Jesus finds us is in Baptism.

Your baptism, my baptism, Jesus is there for us.

Jesus and His baptism

And the place to begin our discussion about baptism, is with Jesus.

This is all about Jesus.

It’s why we start any discussion about what baptism is and what baptism does with the story of Jesus’ baptism.

We read the story moments ago.

Jesus shows up at the Jordan River where his cousin John is baptizing.

And John protests Jesus’ request to be baptized.

John knows that his baptism is about repentance.

It’s for sinners.

And he knows full well that Jesus is no sinner.

But Jesus makes a curious statement.

Here’s what Jesus says:

Matthew 3:15 “Jesus answered him, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus is there to fulfill all righteousness.

Jesus isn’t there because he’s a sinner.

Jesus is there in place of the sinners.

Jesus is there saving sinners.

This is what is meant by “fulfilling righteousness.”

Jesus is becoming the righteousness necessary to make sinners righteous.

Jesus is the one who will save his people from their sins, and here at the Jordan and in the water, Jesus is showing how he will save sinners.

He will die and he will rise for them.

Salvation

So the first thing we can say about “what is baptism?”, baptism is salvation.

Because Jesus was baptized on behalf of sinners, baptism since then has been salvation for sinners.

Jesus’ baptism is connected to his own death on the cross, which would save his people from their sins.

What Jesus says about “fulfilling all righteousness” means that there is more going on with baptism than simply symbolism.

Jesus wasn’t saying, I’m doing this so we all have a picture of what is going on in baptism.

Jesus says he is actually providing righteousness in baptism.

His righteousness, a righteousness that becomes ours in his death and in our baptism.

This is why we start with Jesus’ baptism.

It’s the first baptism.

If Jesus is not baptized in the Jordan, my baptism and your baptism mean absolutely nothing because that day, Jesus is going into the water to save us.

Word

The second thing we can say about baptism is that this is Jesus’ word for us.

The Bible, God’s word gives life.

Baptism is God’s Word in water form a form that saves.

One of the most used Scripture verses for baptism actually contains the saving element in it, though we don’t see it enough.

Matthew 28:19 “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Make disciples is to make Christians.

How does this happen?

Baptizing.

In baptism, a disciple is made.

It’s really easy to focus on the water.

That water we use in our font is tap water.

I’m not afraid to drink tap water, but many don’t.

Tap water is ordinary water.

How could God use ordinary water?

Baptism isn’t just water.

Baptism is God’s Word combined with the water.

Baptism is God’s name and God’s Word combined with the water.

One of the reasons why we say that baptism isn’t symbolism is because God attaches his name to it.

We are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Life-giving name.

We are baptized in God’s name because we are baptized by God himself.