Recovery Sunday (Baptism of our Lord) Sunday             13 Jan 07                         Preached at ULC

Text:  Matthew 3            Title:  A Clean Start

You know, I’ve heard Anne Crooks speak before about her recovery and I knew before she started that she would share a message with all the compassion and authority of a messenger speaking the Word of God.  Anne, you did all that and more – thank you for what you had to say.  You blessed us today, and God has blessed us through you.

I want you to remember what Anne had to say as I share my part of the message with you this morning.  The title of my sermon is “A Clean Start”, and I want you to think about what that meant for Anne when God changed the direction of her life on that day in 1984.  In her own words, Anne said that on that day, God finally got through to me, a reader and a writer, by means of the written word.  24 hours later I had experienced my first sober day.  Sober now for 23 years.

A clean start.  Haven’t you ever wished for a fresh start after something in your life has gotten messy?  The day I was doing the announcements and I announced that the wrong person had died.  The time I was joking with a woman about potty training our kids and I said that some days I thought they were going to be in diapers until they were 15, not realizing that she had a teenage son with such severe developmental issues that he was still in diapers.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could rewind back those moments and make a clean start over them just like you can TiVo out an annoying commercial?

Maybe for you, the issue is a lot more serious than a couple of embarrassing moments.  Anne Crooks drank for a long time.  She’s not the only one in this congregation with alcoholism.  She’s definitely not the only one