When we take vows, we’re making a life-changing commitment. We make that commitment before God and before others, and to ourselves. This kind of commitment is not a one-and-done kind of thing. It’s not an only-when-it’s-easy-and-convenient kind of thing. Rather, it’s the kind of commitment that is most important when it is hard. It’s most important when it calls us to act differently than we may first be inclined. It’s most important when it calls us to act differently than the social momentum around us. It’s most important when it holds us accountable to our true selves and, more importantly, to our Higher Holy Power – God.

This is why it is important that we remind ourselves of the vows we have taken, especially when times are tough.

I urge couples when they are preparing to get married: return to these vows, renew these vows. If there are challenges or troubles in your marriage, let that be a signal to each of you that it is time to remember your vows and to allow them to shape you and to correct your course.

This needs to be true for ministers and the ordination vows we take. Our vows are good and wise, and we need to be accountable to them, and have bodies that hold us accountable.

This needs to be true for public servants of all stripes and the vows you take. Those vows are good and wise, and public servants need to be accountable to them.

This needs to be true for anyone with a professional code of ethics and the vows you take, as doctors or nurses or childcare providers or lawyers or journalists or engineers, electricians, plumbers – what have you.

Whatever your role in the world, you have important responsibilities, a call to use that role to serve others and to serve God. The vows we take can shape us and support us and challenge us to live up to those responsibilities. They also can serve as a wise warning about what can happen when we do not uphold those responsibilities.  

How much more is this true for all of us who have been baptized into the faith of Christ Jesus, and the vows we take through the sacrament of baptism, or the vows that others take on our behalf if we are baptized as children, which we then confirm and commit to when we are old enough to do so.

The commitment to Christ into which we enter at baptism is the most profound kind of commitment we can make. It’s about the heart of who and who God is, in our relationship with God.

As such, our baptismal vows are not a one-and-down kind of thing. It’s not an only-when-it’s-easy-and-convenient kind of thing. Rather, it’s the kind of commitment that is most important when it is hard. It’s most important when it calls us to act differently than we may first be inclined. It’s most important when it calls us to act differently than the social momentum around us, to be citizens of the Realm of Heaven rather than earthly empires. It’s most important when it holds us accountable to our true selves and, more importantly, to our Higher Holy Power, the universal Higher Holy Power – God.

Part of what we commit to when committing to our baptismal vows, is to the cycle of repentance and renewal, supported by God’s Love and Mercy. This is how we stay accountable to God, to Jesus, to our best selves. This is profoundly humbling; it is profoundly challenging; it is profoundly life giving, thanks to the transforming power of God’s Love and Mercy.  

For these reasons it is important as a community of folks committed to this Way of Jesus, that we have the discipline of periodically remembering and renewing our Baptismal vows.

For those of us who were baptized as infants or young children, this is especially important. Our parents, caretakers, godparents, church community took these vows to do their best to raise us in the faith of God through Christ Jesus, and to teach us to live by those commitments. But we did not consciously choose this for ourselves. Maybe we were confirmed in our faith as adolescents. But still, it can be profoundly important for us to have ways of renewing our Baptismal vows at any stage of life.

For those who were baptized as adults, you know what it is like to take the plunge into discipleship. That transformation does not end. There are times when we are eager and excited and joyous about the gifts that Jesus brings us, and the challenges, in this new sense of self as a Beloved Child of the Living God. Then there are times when our enthusiasm wanes, and we struggle or falter or stray. That is to be expected. Thank God our God is a God of Mercy. Thank God that the Way of Jesus is the Way of God’s Mercy. The Spirit can renew us in our discipleship, whatever our stage of life or period of struggle.

For those who are not baptized, this can be an opportunity to reflect prayerfully on where you are in your exploration of faith and spirit and relationship with God and with Jesus, an opportunity to reflect on what it may mean for you to say “Yes,” and to take that plunge of baptism into the faith and Way of Jesus.

 Around this time in this season of Epiphany the practice of many churches is to retell the story of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River by his cousin John. At our church, we have decided this is a good time for a blessing of renewal in our commitment to the baptismal vows, a blessing of renewal in the Spirit that is welcomed in through Baptism, a renewal in our knowledge of our belovedness as children of the Living God.

What does this mean for you now? With where you are in your life? With where you are, where we are, in what is going on in our society and our world? With how the Spirit is moving for you and for us, how Jesus is guiding us, how God is still speaking in our lives and in times?

So, let us hear the baptismal vows, according to our United Church of Christ’s Book of Worship:

Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be Christ’s disciple, to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able?

Do you promise, according to the grace given you, to grow in the Christian faith and to be a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ, celebrating Christ’s presence and furthering Christ’s mission?

I invite you to prayerfully reflect on these questions. Take a moment to return to how it is with your soul now, these days, honest to God. What is deeply on your heart? What is your soul yearning for? What stirring, what call may you be receiving in your soul?

Maybe place a hand over your heart to remind yourself of God’s love which Jesus reveals.

What does it mean for you, here and now, “to be Christ’s disciple, to follow in the way of our Savior”?

What does it mean for you, here and now, “to resist oppression and evil”?

What does it mean for you, here and now, “to show love and justice”?

What does it mean for you, here and now, “to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able”?

What does it mean for you, here and now, “to grow in the Christian faith”?

What does it mean for you, here and now, “to be a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ”?

What does it mean for you, here and now, to “celebrate Christ’s presence and further Christ’s mission”?

May you all be blessed, by the grace of God, to let these commitments guide you and support you, challenge you and feed you. May you be blessed, by the Eternal God, with strength for life’s journey, courage in time of suffering, the joy of faith, the freedom of love, and the hope of new life, through Jesus Christ, who makes us one.

Amen.

Delivered Sunday, January 28, 2026, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge.

Mark 1:1-15

(First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament)

This is the good story about the Chosen One, Creator Sets Free (Jesus), who is the Son of the Great Spirit. This story began long ago and was foretold in the Sacred Teachings by the ancient prophet Creator Will Help Us (Isaiah).

“Behold!” Creator Will Help Us said, as he spoke the words of the Great Spirit. “I am sending my messenger ahead of you to prepare the way. He will be a voice howling in the desert wilderness, ‘Clear away the stones and make a straight path for the coming of the Honored One!’

The prophesied messenger appeared in the desert wilderness. He came to tell everyone to turn from their wrong ways of thinking and doing and return to the ways of the Great Spirit. The messenger’s name was Gift of Goodwill (John). He came to perform the purification ceremony (baptism) to show people that they had been released from their broken ways.

From the surrounding territory of the Land of Promise (Judea) and from Village of Peace (Jerusalem), all the people came to him to participate in his purification ceremony performed in the river Flowing Down (Jordan). As they came, they were admitting to their bad hearts and broken ways.

Gift of Goodwill came wearing camel’s hair garments, with a leather sash around his waist. The food he ate was grasshoppers and wild honey.

“I am preparing the way for the one who is greater and more powerful than I,” he announced to all. “I am not even worthy to bend down and untie his sandals. I perform the purification ceremony with water, but he will perform the purification ceremony with the Holy Spirit!”

It was in those days that Creator Sets Free (Jesus) came from his home to have gift of Goodwill perform for him the purification ceremony.

As soon as Creator Sets Free came up from the water, he saw the sky open. The Spirit of Creator came down like a dove and rested on him. Then a voice from the sky spoke, “This is my much-loved Son who makes my heart glad!”

Right then and there the Spirit drove Creator Sets Free into the desert wilderness. For forty days and nights he remained there, surrounded by wild animals, and being tested by Accuser (Satan) – the ancient trickster snake. Spirit messengers also came to give him strength and comfort.

Then later, after Gift of Goodwill was arrested, Creator Sets Free traveled to the territory of Circle of Nations (Galilee) to tell the good story.       

“The time has now come!” he said to the people. “Creator’s good road is right in front of you. It is time to return to the right ways of thinking and doing. Put your trust in this good story I am bringing to you.”