Once upon a time … that's all it takes, "once upon a time," or any variation thereof, and we are ready to settle in for a good story. That phrase transports us somehow to a place where we are open to listening … and open to the possibilities opening to us in the story … possibilities that our lives will be transformed. So it is with the creation story … a once upon a time tale that reminds us that God is good, that creation is good … that we are inherently good. It is a story that puts us in our place – the Hebrew text uses the verb "bara" for create – a verb used only in connection with God. It is only God that can shape life and breath and spirit out of the chaos … we humans can form and make things … but we can't create something out of nothingness.

The story of creation took shape during the darkest of times. The people of Israel had reached what they thought was the end of their story as God's chosen people. After years of being warned by the prophets they had better shape up or big trouble was coming, IT had finally happened … things had caught up to them and they no longer had much say in anything. Now they lived under Babylonian rule, their identity as God's people seemingly gone. As their captors mocked them, the exiles wondered: "how can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" As an answer their poets remembered creation, and shaped the words of Genesis: "In the beginning, God created …" and God saw what he had made and it was awesomely good. A story that said to the captives – it was good once … it can be so again.

Have you ever been to that place … when life catches up to you? Sometimes we do it to ourselves. In this month of resolutions for the new year, many people try to make amends for too much eating and not enough exercise. The gym we go to is crowded in January … everyone resolving they've got to lose some weight, get in better shape. By February, the crowds will have thinned until next resolution season. In helping people find their way around the church last Thursday evening, I was told that recovery groups see a big increase in attendance in January … people hoping to turn their lives around to be on the road to recovery … listening to those who are calling them away from addictions and hoping to be on the path of recovery. We all have our own places … places that the prophets of our lives warn us about … the little exiles we have driven ourselves to that cause us to feel cut off and wonder if God is still with us. Then there are the exiles that are not of our doing … the exiles of violence crashing on us, of terrible illnesses and wrenching deaths … they too leave us wondering – where are you God?

Have you ever been to that place? The exile story of Israel is our story … and while we are in those Babylon places … we too need to look back and remember. Remember back to those times and places when all was well. In exile places it is easy to forget there ever was such a time. Just as Israel had their storytellers to remind them … we have those who remind us. The community of faith that tells us – it will not always be like this … remember, and in that remembering have courage to go forward to a new life. It can be good again. For, in the beginning God created, and it was awesomely good.

The thread of our story as God's people picks up for us this morning in the baptism of Jesus. The same spirit that was at work in creation is now at work in Jesus. In his baptism the heavens are torn apart and that which was separated is no longer. The barriers between earth and heaven, between God and God's people are removed … .for God dwells with us. Baptism too calls us to remember. In our baptismal story we remember who we are as God's people through the story of water and the role water has played in that story. Look at page 36 of the hymnal – God's spirit swept across the dark waters and brought light, Noah was saved through water, the people of Israel were led through water … and finally Jesus, nurtured in the water of a womb and then baptized in the waters of the Jordan River. Baptism connects us. It is our reminder of God's story in our lives in those times when it is easy to forget … the times when life picks us up and twists us around and wrings us out. The touch of water is the touch of God, the healing touch of Jesus Christ in our lives and that touch can not be undone. Years ago as we shared in the re-affirmation of our baptismal covenant at Easter, I shared that the water we were using was in part water from the Jordan River that I had gathered while at the Jordan River. After worship that morning one man came to me with tears in his eyes to tell me what an important moment the re-affirmation of baptism had been for him that day. Life was tough for him – his wife, while strong in body, was suffering with Alzheimer's and it was all he could do to keep up with her; one of his grown daughters was in a very bad family situation. He was very tired. But, he said to me that the moment that water touched his hand, he had to taste it … for in knowing that there was Jordan River water there he was connected back to the day his daughter was baptized. Jordan River water was used at her baptism. He said that moment connected him back not only to her baptism, but to his own and then some. He could then say that in that he knew that God had brought him through this far, and God would continue to be with him through it all. In baptism we remember.

And as we remember all that connects us to God's goodness we also know this. Jesus' baptism was the beginning of his public ministry. It was at that moment he declared how it was going to be. In submitting to the baptism of repentance Jesus stands with us, shoulder to should, and says: "I know what it is to be human … to feel the shame of your brokenness, the pain of your sorrows, the depth of your griefs … and I will be with you in that." The season of Epiphany is the season of light revealed. As we remember let us pay attention to the ways in which Jesus is revealed and made present to us. We go forth, connected to the love of God that creates us and redeems us, to tell the story of God's love so that all can remember.