I really like September. I like going to school. As a student and as a teacher I’ve been going to school in September for over 60 years. I like crisp fall days in the middle of the USA. Several years ago I had the privilege to be in Australia in September. There I enjoyed the balmy days of spring in the southern hemisphere. I also like September because my birthday is September 11. For the first 50 years of my life, having 9/11 as a birthday was a good thing since people could remember “nine one “as a helpful number in the USA. However, in 2001 life changed on “nine eleven”. I was with student nurses at the hospital in the birth center that day, and several families who were in labor did not want to have their babies born on such a tragic day. I told the laboring mothers that September 11th always had been a good day, and that having a baby born on September11th was a good thing.

 

We know that Jesus talked with the Jewish people about a new birth and being born again. Nicodemus, a rabbi, even asked if a man could enter his mother’s womb a second time. Jesus spoke about this second birth as recorded in John 3:2-6. “I tell you, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit.“ This second birth is baptism. Through this process and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are assured of eternal salvation in the Kingdom of God. In the Lutheran church infants are baptized. Some other churches do not baptize until the teenage years; others baptize even later.

 

Jesus himself was baptized as an adult by John. When he came out of the water in the Jordan river, heaven opened and the Spirit of God came down from above in the form of a dove as the Father spoke, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Since I was baptized as an infant at six weeks I experienced the “second birth” in October. When our son attended a Lutheran grade school, once a month during chapel services, children were recognized during their baptismal birthday month. It would be spiritually healthy for all of us to commemorate our second birthday as well as our traditional first birthday.

 

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for life on earth and for our second birth and the price paid for us by sending your only Son Jesus to assure us of our life with you forever in heaven. In Christ’s name. Amen.

 

Jamie Spikes, PhD, RN

Parish Nurse Educator

St.

Luke

Lutheran Church

Manhattan, KS, USA