The Mystery of Baptism – Part 2

Welcome, it's good to see everyone. We have been talking about the sign of the Son of Man in the recent weeks, and there is a lot to discover in that sign. It's a sign that we have been waiting for, for essentially two millennia.

It's a long time. And Jesus said that when we would see the time of the end, the last events starting to take place, that we should look up. And when we would look up, we see the sign of the Son of Man.

And looking up is what we have been doing for a number of years. We look at the heavens, and in the heavens we understand that God is speaking with symbolism. Unfortunately, it's been perverted a lot.

And so we have things like astrology, the zodiac, it's turned into a personal thing where we just supposedly learn about who we should date or not date and stuff like that. But God's original is still there. He has a purpose for the constellations in the heavens, and that's what we've been studying.

And as we've been studying those things, God has led us and shown us many things until we came to this point where we have discovered what we believe is the sign of the Son of Man. It's a special sign. I'll show you it in just a minute.

And it's formed from two comets that are presently in the heavens. You can look at them with a telescope. They've been reported on in the news.

And for many reasons, we recognize the sign of the Son of Man in the path of those comets. Because they travel through certain constellations that have symbolism that we can understand when we go back to the Bible. And that's always our foundation.

It's the Bible. We look at the Word of God. We compare that.

How does that compare with what we see in the heavens? So today we're going to talk about the mystery of baptism. And this is actually a very central theme in God's kingdom. And in the sign of the Son of Man, it is also featured there.

This is the sign. And you see these are the paths of the two comets. One comes this direction, and the other comes around in that direction.

And it forms the shape of, it looks like a rudimentary drawing of a whale. Jesus said, I will give no sign but the sign of Jonah, who was in the body of the whale. And it's interesting how God uses all of these symbols.

Some are ancient. Some are more modern. Some are even in the artwork.

This is a very popular free program called Stellarium that we use. It's probably the most, or one of the most popular programs to explore the heavens. And this is just the default artwork for this river.

And some of these things are based on mythology, Greek mythology. But God created the whole world, and he uses whatever he wants. But we see it in the context of the scriptures.

And it's just interesting that along this river that we see in the heavens, this is the constellation of Eridanus, there is an image of a body, a person buried in the river. Now this artwork was drawn to reflect the Greek mythology, because there was a story where, I probably shouldn't repeat it because I don't know it so well, but the, as I recall, the son of the sun god or whatever was going across the sky, and he wanted to drive the chariot of the sun, but he couldn't do it very well, and he fell down into the river. And that's where that came to be represented, a body in the river.

Now we're not really interested so much in the mythology, but God, knowing the end from the beginning, orchestrated all of these things together. And here, just in this little portion of the river that is inside the whale, there is this image of a person, just like Jonah, inside the whale's belly. Notice, he's in the belly of the whale, he's not in the tail, he's not in the head, he's in the belly, just like the Bible says.

So that's just a testament to how God knows the end from the beginning, and he uses all things, you know, the Bible says all things work together for good to them that are called according to God's purpose. Now we've been looking at this comet, which for several years was the biggest comet ever known, and it earned its name until there was one bigger comet that was discovered to be a comet just in 2021. And that one's not shown here, but it has been going through the clock phase that we see there in these last years.

It was discovered to be a comet just about the time that it was entering the clock and now it's on the other side coming out. And that's the biggest comet that has ever been discovered to date. One in the clock the biggest, and before that was this comet here, discovered in 2017.

That was the biggest until the other one was discovered in the clock phase. Now this is just one small area of the sky, and yet we see these comets all converging on this little clock. So these things are very significant in terms of understanding the time, because right from the beginning in Genesis, he created the sun, the moon, and the stars for the purpose of understanding the time.

But this is the sign of the Son of Man, and it comes just before his second coming. Let's look at that one more time. In Matthew 24, verse 30, he says, Jesus speaking, and then shall appear the sign of the son of man in heaven ,and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn,And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

So there's three things that he's mentioning here. First the sign of the Son of Man, then the tribes of the earth mourn, and then the Son of Man comes himself in the clouds. Now these are words that can be understood in different ways, because God likes to use riddles.

He wants to exercise our minds. He doesn't put everything just on the surface. We have to dig for it.

We have to look for things. And it's interesting when he says the Son of Man is coming in the clouds, he says the clouds of heaven. Is that just saying he comes with the white fluffy clouds that float across the sky? Or is he referring something to something perhaps a little bit more symbolic of what we will see in the last days? Because these comets, you know, here I've just drawn lines because that shows the path of the comet.

But a comet is an object in space that has a cloud around it. They're usually made from ice, and then the ice evaporates off of the core stone, if you will, of the comet, and that makes this shimmering tail that points away from the sun. That's what makes a comet.

So comets and clouds are connected. When Jesus says he comes with the clouds, it's symbolic language. And in the heavens, we can understand that to mean he comes with the cometary clouds.

And that's what we're looking at here. We're looking at the comets to understand the time of Jesus' return. And when the sign began, it began in March, and that's the first part of Jesus' statement here, then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man.

That refers to this beginning part where the sign appears beginning at that time in March. That was when K2, this darker blue comet, as I've drawn it, that's when it started and left the clock there. We discovered the dates from looking at the heavens in comparison with the prophecies in the Bible.

But the second thing that Jesus mentioned, then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn. Now this happens right when this comet came to its middle point, right here at the tip. This is where the comet is now.

It's just about right there. And this is the time when the tribes of the earth are mourning. What are the tribes of the earth? We talked about that before in light of the recent news.

It's easy to understand that Israel, the tribes of Israel are mourning because of the attack and now the war that has been ensuing. So the tribes of the earth, earthly Israel, are presently in mourning exactly in the middle of the time of this sign. Starting with the appearance of the sign of the Son of Man, in the middle the tribes are mourning and at the end the Son of Man returns with the clouds of the heavens.

So that's one aspect there that we see the sign of the Son of Man pointing to the time outlining in broad strokes this verse Matthew 24:30. And then we started to look at this in a different context because Jesus' deliverance from the earth is symbolized in an old story in the Bible, the story of the exodus of Israel from Egypt. And we saw how the clock in combination with the course of the comets marks the midnight hour.

I won't go into that detail again now but if you look at the path of this comet a little bit before this sign of the Son of Man began, that was when the comets crossed right past the midnight hour on the clock. That was confirmed in other ways through the scriptures also. So this marked the midnight hour.

It was at midnight when in Egypt the angel of death passed over the houses of the Israelites who had the blood of the lamb over their house, over the door of their house. That was at midnight. There was a great cry in Egypt.

There was mourning because they lost their firstborn. Every family lost the firstborn if they didn't have the protection of the blood which represents the blood of Christ. And then a short time later they left Egypt.

It was the same night for them at midnight. Then when the Egyptians saw that they had suffered a great loss, they were very eager to send away Israel. So Israel escaped out of Egypt and they took with them many goods from the Egyptians.

So that explains this little difference that we see between the midnight hour and the beginning of the sign of the Son of Man because first it was midnight and then there was a short time before the exodus began. Yes, it was early in the morning. It was about sunrise when they actually left Egypt.

And there, if you look at the hours of the clock, that would be around the hour of the sunrise even. And then what was the next stop that Israel came to? They left Egypt and then they went until the Red Sea. Here we have the next stop of this comet is at the water.

They couldn't go any further. They needed to cross the Red Sea. Of course, you know the story.

God told Moses to part the sea and then when they went through, the Egyptians tried to pass after them and they were drowned. And we see through this course that the comet makes, we see the course of the children of Israel from Egypt until the Promised Land. From Egypt they came to the Red Sea and then they came to the Mount Sinai experience.

Now this is review for some of you. When was, on what day did Moses go up the mountain to receive the two tables of the law? When the mountain was on fire and there was smoke and thunder and the sound of a trumpet, it was Pentecost. And it just so happens that these two comets, they cross right here at this point and the time when they crossed, this was at Pentecost in 2023.

That was May 27th, 2023, right at the beginning of that day, which in the Hebrew terms is actually on the 26th in the evening. But that was the very time when the path of those comets crossed and this comet was just going over the path of that comet, it was Pentecost. So it marks that point in history of Israel.

And then we come to the tip, and what day was that at the tip? Yom Kippur, it was the day of atonement in 2023. So the timing of these comets in our modern times, it points back to the history of Israel when Moses received the Ten Commandments on Pentecost and Moses on Yom Kippur, he went back to the mountain and he received the Ten Commandments for the second time because they had broken them the first time. Yes, thank you.

We even see this in this constellation, we see this X, and X is representing the number 10. The Roman numeral X is the number 10, and that represents the Ten Commandments. So we see even that is marked, illustrating the significance of that time, both in the time when the comet crossed and visually we see a reminder this is about Ten Commandments.

And we saw that also before, there are other things like it was about the prayer of Moses who said, blot me out, and when you blot something out, you strike an X over it. So we see different symbolism, different ways of understanding this crossing of the comets. So after Moses came down the second time, they built the tabernacle.

God had given them instructions, and when they built the tabernacle, it made it possible that God could go with them. Because when they had sinned, God was ready to blot the people out, like that X blotting them out, but Moses interceded and said, blot me out instead. But then God said, no, I have a different plan, and he gave them instructions for building the sanctuary so that God could dwell with them.

That's what we see here, these three belt stars of Orion. This symbolism comes from Revelation chapters 4 and 5, where we have the throne, and the three stars represent the three persons of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and in Revelation it talks about four living creatures surrounding the throne. This is where we spent many years studying, and the throne is represented by those three belt stars.

So that represents, now as this comet passes by the throne, it represents God traveling with his people, just as Israel traveled through the wilderness with their God in the sanctuary, before finally coming to the promised land, represented by the end point of the sign of the Son of Man, where we cross the heavenly Jordan in our case. Interesting. You're saying that the Orion Nebula is also a cloud, and it's a fiery cloud, if you will, just like the cloud, the pillar of cloud by day, or the pillar of fire by night, was over the tabernacle in the wilderness.

Good, nice. So last week we started to look a little bit more closely at this part of the sign. Previously we looked at the entrance, where we enter into the sign, if you will, by faith, just as Jesus said, come to me and I will give you rest, the clock signifying that rest.

And then we looked last week, we started to see about the symbolism of the baptism. This is 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 2. Paul says, of the children of Israel who passed through the Red Sea, they were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud that was above and in the sea, which was made into two walls as they passed through. So they were surrounded by water, and he connects that with baptism.

And so last week we looked at how this represents not just that baptism, but when we look at that in connection with the other symbolism there, we have the dove over the one in the river. What does that bring to mind? Jesus' baptism. Let's look at that in Matthew chapter 3, verse 16.

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. So John lowered him into the water, and when he came up out of the water, lo, the heavens were opened. Now, whenever you read the heavens are opened, that directs our attention upwards to look in the heavens.

Perhaps there is something in the stars of heaven that reflects this scene. The heavens were opened unto him, and what did he see? He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. That's exactly what we see here in the sign of the Son of Man, in the center even.

The baptism, now representing Jesus in the water, and the dove coming down upon him. Last week, we looked at the symbol of this sculptor's chisel, as it was originally named in full, and we saw how that points to how God is our sculptor. He sculpts us in his image.

And we saw how that is connected also with his baptism. Because when we are baptized, we pass through the doors of the sanctuary. This is the old tabernacle that Moses constructed, and it has three doors.

And Jesus said, I am the door. Now it's interesting, he said, I am the door, singular. But elsewhere, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And these doors were called, they had names, and they called them the way, the truth, and the life. So Jesus was the door, but he was all three doors. At each place, it represents Jesus.

In order to pass through, we must come through Jesus. When someone had a sin that they wanted to confess, they would come, they would bring the lamb, and they would confess their sin on the lamb, and it would be slain on the altar. That represents our repentance and Jesus' sacrifice.

An innocent lamb was killed for our sin. And we saw last week how that points to, there's even the laver there, how we are cleansed in the baptism of repentance. When we repent and we come to Jesus, he cleans us, and he accepts us.

We enter into the realm where God dwells, and we're part of his family when we come to Jesus. In order to enter here, you enter through the door, which is Jesus. But Jesus doesn't just say, okay, now you're part of the family, it's all over.

No, there's another door, and that door also represents Jesus. And when we go through that door, we learned last week that it's another baptism. The word baptism just means immersion.

So when we're baptized, we're immersed. First we're immersed with repentance. We come to Christ with an atmosphere of repentance, and we're immersed in water, cleansing, to cleanse away all our guilt.

But here, we're immersed in light. Once you enter, there's the light of the Holy Spirit, and the bread, which represents the word of God. So the light shines on the word, and it's reflected all through the golden walls, and the priest would be completely immersed in that light.

And that corresponds to what John the Baptist said that Jesus would do. In Mark 1, verse 8, John the Baptist said, I indeed have baptized you with water. That's the first part, the first door, the first passage into the sanctuary, is that baptism of water.

But then he said, but he, referring to Jesus, shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And that is this baptism, if you will. Remember, there's one door, that's Jesus.

So when we come to Jesus, there's one baptism. But it's a baptism of repentance, and it's a baptism of the Spirit. So it's not that we have to get baptized more than once, but our baptism into Christ opens the way through the first door, through the second door, and even through the third door.

That was the new element that we looked at last week, where when the priest would enter that third door, there was a third immersion. What was he immersed in? You remember? The cloud of incense. We saw how he was instructed to put incense on the coals in large amounts, and it would make a big cloud of incense that would fill this whole small chamber in the back.

So that when he entered, it was a baptism into that incense. And so when we're baptized into Christ, we're baptized into repentance, we're baptized with this Holy Spirit, and we're baptized into prayer. That's what we saw last week.

That incense represents prayer. And in connection with the sign of the Son of Man, we have the exodus of Egypt. So we look back at Moses' prayer when he interceded with God in Exodus chapter 32 and verse 32.

Moses was speaking with the Lord, and he says, because this was when the children of Israel had sinned with the golden calf, he said, Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin, and if not, let me, I pray thee, out of thy book. And this is the character of Christ that God wants us to be baptized into, so that we, ourselves, have the same character, that same willingness to say, Lord, blot me out of your book, take, it's okay if I don't experience the glory of the eternal kingdom, but forgive your people. That's that sacrificial attitude that Jesus refers to there.

Yes, just as Jesus said on the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. When we look at Jesus' baptism, there's one more element that we haven't looked at yet. After he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove in Matthew chapter 3 and verse 17, says, And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

So, it's fitting, first of all, that we see this in the sign of the Son of Man. It's the voice that says, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. It represents Jesus.

Now, that wasn't the only time that there was a voice from God saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Who can tell me where there was another time that that voice was heard? At the Mount of Transfiguration. So, let's look at that.

That's in Matthew chapter 17. Let's just start at the beginning here in verse 1. After six days, Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John, and his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart. And he, Jesus, was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

Remember that. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. So, there was Jesus, and then appeared with him Moses and Elijah, or Elias.

And then Peter says some stuff that he wasn't really awake to say. And then, in verse 5, while he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud, a cloud like the comets, overshadowed them. And behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Hear ye him. So, we hear the same voice speaking to Jesus, or to the disciples, when Jesus was transfigured on the mountain. And who was with him? Moses and Elijah.

Now, that's interesting. We were just talking about how the children of Israel were baptized into Moses, which, of course, is just a type for the baptism into Christ, but a different aspect of it. And then there was Jesus there on the mountain, and Jesus baptized with the Holy Spirit.

And then there was Elijah. Now, we haven't talked about Elijah, or have we? Who does Elijah represent? John the Baptist. Jesus said of John the Baptist that this was Elijah who was to come.

He had the spirit of Elijah. So, on the Mount of Transfiguration, we have Moses, Jesus, and Elijah. The three who represent the three different aspects of the baptism.

Let's look at Matthew chapter 17. This is the story of the transfiguration, and the disciples were questioning Jesus afterward about Elijah, because they asked him, why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? The scribes understood that Elijah would have to come before the Messiah, before Jesus. Jesus answered and said to them, yes, Elias truly shall come first and restore all things.

Now, it's interesting. He says he shall come. And yet, the next thing that he says, he says, but I say unto you that Elias is come already.

And they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. And then the disciples understood that he spake to them of John the Baptist.

So, Jesus connected Elijah with John the Baptist. And yet, he said first that Elijah will first come, will in the future. And yet, he had already come.

So, we have Moses and Jesus, but John the Baptist has this dual role. He was there. He came as the forerunner to Jesus.

But Jesus says that Elijah would not be just in John the Baptist, but he also shall come. Now, that makes sense when we look at the prophecy that spoke of Elijah coming. That comes from Malachi chapter 4 and verse 5. He says, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Well, now, that's interesting because John the Baptist came before Christ in the spirit and power of Elijah at his first coming, right? But is that what the great and dreadful day of the Lord is referring to? No, the great and dreadful day of the Lord, that's in our time. And that means Elijah must point, or he must come again at the end just before Jesus returns. So, in the transfiguration, we have this voice that connects the transfiguration with Jesus' baptism.

Because in both cases, God says, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. But in the mount of transfiguration, we have Moses and Elijah showing the complete picture of the baptism, the three different aspects of our baptism. The Moses' aspect, where we're baptized into his character, the self-sacrificial character of Christ.

That's that inner part of the sanctuary where we're baptized into the prayer that Moses exemplified. But then, there was Jesus who baptized with the Holy Spirit. That's going through the second door.

And then, yes, the Holy Spirit, of course, gives us the truth, the word of God. Leads, Jesus said, the spirit leads us into all truth. And then, there's Elijah's baptism as John the Baptist represented there in the baptism of repentance.

But on the mount of transfiguration, they're all together. And that's where Jesus said that Elijah will come. There's a coming time where we will see these things put together.

Let's look at that a little bit more. Because on the mount of transfiguration, you have Moses and Jesus and Elijah. Now, Moses and Jesus are spoken of in the Revelation.

Let's look at that. Revelation 15, verse 2, And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire. And them that had gotten the victory over the beast and over the image and over his mark and over the number of his name stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. So, we have Moses and the Lamb. And then, it gives more description about that.

But it connects Moses and the Lamb. Now, I want to show you another connection between those two. We saw how Jesus, on the mount of transfiguration, Matthew 17, in verse 2, Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun.

So, his face was bright and shining. Who else had a shining face? Moses. And when did Moses have a shining face? When he came down the mountain from Mount Sinai.

And looking at the sign of the Son of Man, that corresponds to this time up here. Not the first time, but the second time, after he made his prayer, when he came down, his face was shining. But who else has shining faces? Who can tell me? Jesus and Moses.

Okay, but specifically in the Bible, if we look at the book of Daniel, chapter 12 and verse 3, And they that be wise shall do what? They shall shine. They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. What makes the firmament, the sky, bright? The sun.

So, they will shine just like Jesus did. His face was shining with the sun. The wise shall shine with the brightness of the sun as well.

They that turn many to righteousness as the stars. Directing our attention to the stars of heaven. So, who? We have Jesus and Moses as examples, whose faces shone.

Then we have the wise. Now, Elijah, who was also there on the Mount of Transfiguration, there's no story that talks about his face shining, but Jesus said, he shall come. And when he comes, before the coming of the Lord, his face needs to shine also.

Just like Moses' face and Jesus' face. Elijah's face also needs to shine. But who is Elijah? What? The wise.

Exactly. These are those who come in the power, in the spirit and power of Elijah, just like John the Baptist did. Now we have a collection of people.

They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, that is, as the sun. And they that turn many to righteousness shining as the stars forever. So, in this time, and I say in this time because this points to that time when Moses came down from the mountain and his face was shining.

So, in that time, the face of the last day Elijah's, if you will, the people who come in the spirit and power of Elijah, who are the wise and turn many to righteousness as the stars, they will shine during this time. Yes, that's a good point. We have here, as we've spoken about before, this cone at the top represents a trumpet.

We've been waiting for the seventh trumpet in here. If you just kind of hide that part, you see it's kind of like the bell of a trumpet. Let me show you that.

Here, looking on the side, here's the comet as it comes, and it forms something like the bell of the trumpet. And it was within these dates here at the end, marked by this tight crossing of the comets, that certain events have happened, most notably the war in Israel. That is like the air that is being blown into the trumpet and getting louder and louder as this last time progresses.

So, it's in that time of the seventh trumpet during which we can expect the louder voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. That's the voice that is to be amplified. In the heavens, when the Bible speaks of a voice in heaven, when we look in the stars, they're all quiet.

But a voice, or a loud voice, is represented in heaven by a brighter light. So, like the greater light of the sun or the moon, these are the great voices in heaven. And so, that's what the seventh trumpet is pointing also to this time of the faces of the wise who understand the heavens, who turn many to righteousness like the stars.

That's referring to that loudness of the heavens, the brightness of their faces. So, there was the trumpet sound as well when they first received the Ten Commandments. And then Moses' face shined.

So, the key thing is we have, especially at these two points, both of them point to receiving the Ten Commandments on both points. It's about the Ten Commandments. And those who are faithful to the Ten Commandments are in two different classes of people.

There are those who are faithful unto death, like the martyrs, like Moses was. He died. And there are those who are faithful in their life.

But they also embrace a form of death. Because Jesus said in John chapter 15 and verse 10, If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my father's commandments, and abide in his love. And he said, These things I have spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you, that your joy might be full.

Then he said, This is my commandment. So, he's clarifying what he said before. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.

And how did Jesus love us? He gave his life for us. Therefore, he continues and he says, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And that's what we see in the prayer of Moses, is that willingness to lay down our lives, not just our physical lives.

Moses laid down even his eternal life. He said, He didn't say, Kill me. He said, Blot my name out of your book.

That means that's an eternal sacrifice. That's the love with which Jesus loved us. Will we give our greatest hope for our friends, to lay down his life for his friends? That's what Jesus experienced when having never sinned himself, having never done anything that would cause God to say that he is not pleased with him.

He never did anything that would break that union with his father. And yet, he became sin for us, Paul says. And when he did, there was an eternal separation.

And we can understand that because his new name, which comes from the belt stars of Orion that represent the throne, and the one that represents him is Alnitak, and it means the wounded one. Jesus is the wounded one. When we are raised from the dead, we're given new bodies.

We're raised in the newness of the glorious body. But Jesus, when he was raised, he was wounded. After, when he met with his disciples, remember Thomas, he said, Unless I put my hand in your wounds, I won't believe.

And that wasn't so good for Thomas, because it's always better to believe in faith. But it shows us that Jesus was wounded even after he was raised from the dead. And he retained his human body.

It was a glorified body, but it was a human body. And even keeping the wounds in his side, in his hands, in his feet, the wounds that are marked in Orion by the stars. So Jesus, for all eternity, is the only one who will forever be wounded.

He made an eternal sacrifice, and I think that is most significant in the fact that he is in a human body, just like us. He ascended into heaven in a human body, not in a glorious divine body, spiritual body that he had in the beginning. So that was an eternal sacrifice that Jesus made for us.

Amen. So with that, let's stand and we'll close with a word of prayer. Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for the sacrifice that you made for us, showing us how to love one another, how to deny ourselves and follow you, taking up our cross, as you said.

We thank you for making it possible by being the door of baptism, that we're baptized into your character with repentance, receiving your Spirit, and ultimately reflecting your character of self-sacrifice, that we can pray for our friends, that you would forgive them even at the cost of our eternal lives. This is the baptism that you have opened the way for us to participate in, and when we do, we participate in your life, in your love, and there's no greater communion with you than to experience what you experienced to the greatest extent that it is possible for us. And so we thank you for that experience, that we may taste your love as we share it with others.

Go with us always, and may our faces shine with the light of understanding of the sign of the Son of Man in this time, and with the hope of seeing him visibly when he returns. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, and in Alnitak, his new name, the wounded one. Amen.

Thanks again for coming, and we'll see you next week, I hope. Amen.Thank you.