Kindred in Christ,

On Baptism of the Lord Sunday, we remember that Jesus does not stand above the water issuing commands. He steps into the river with those marked as sinners, suspects, and outsiders. In that place of vulnerability and solidarity, heaven breaks open and names him Beloved (Matthew 3:13-17).

Baptism tells us something unsettling about God and institutional power: legality is not the same as righteousness. History is crowded with laws that harmed the vulnerable and were defended as “order.” Every campaign of ethnic cleansing was once legal, and only later named for the evil it was. What we are witnessing in the recent actions of ICE belongs to that same story. As a church shaped by the waters of baptism, we cannot remain silent. We must name this plainly—it is evil.

Human brokenness is one thing; systems that terrorize families and call it security are another. The baptized Christ does not sanctify fear or violence. God stands in the water with those who are surveilled, detained, and disappeared, declaring them beloved and of inherent worth.

This Sunday, we are grateful to have our own Jemina Marasigan, who will be preaching her first sermon, and inviting us to go deeper into what it truly means to be named God’s beloved and what it asks of us to see others as beloved too. I will be present with you as we listen, worship, and discern together.

To follow Jesus after the river is to claim a different allegiance, to refuse to baptize cruelty, to resist the normalization of harm, and to live our baptism out loud. As a church, we are called not only to believe in belovedness, but to practice it by showing up, speaking out, protecting the vulnerable, and bearing witness to a grace that frees the captive and insists that no one is disposable in the eyes of God.

Alongside you,

Pastor Paul Ortiz