Life BG, Life AG

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
November 7, 2004

Life BG, Life AG
Romans 6:1-4
John 3:1-10

Nicodemus was confused enough when he heard Jesus explain baptism to him.
Can you imagine if Paul had tried to explain things to him?
Poor Nicodemus would probably have just given up
and gone back to the Temple.
“Born again of spirit and water” sounds muddled enough,
but “Baptized into death.”

Paul’s writings are often difficult to understand.
They were letters, and they were meant to be read aloud;
read aloud and read in their entirety.
They were to be read to the gathered congregation
and then explained and discussed.
We can’t do them justice when we read a verse or two on Sunday morning

Paul’s letter to the Romans is his longest letter and his most confusing.
It is his most deeply theological.
Other letters have more practical advice,
but in this letter Paul explains his beliefs.
Paul’s writing is never all that clear or concise,
yet there is an overriding theme that runs through the letter,
a theme that is easy to miss in the minutiae of the letter.
It is easy to get hung up on a verse or two
It is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Listen again to the four verses that were our first lesson:
“What then are we to say?
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?
By no means!
How can we who died to sin go on living in it?
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Paul is picking up on Jesus’ lesson to Nicodemus.
We have been baptized into Christ Jesus.
Ours is a baptism that is more than John’s baptism of repentance.
When John baptized a person,
the newly baptized was washed clean, sins forgiven,
But our baptism involves more than water.
It involves the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ.
We are washed clean, but even more,
we are filled with the Spirit.

In our baptism, we figuratively go under the water one person,
and come out of the water a different person, a new person,
a disciple of Jesus Christ.
In our baptism we die to the old life we lived,
and are raised to new life in Jesus Christ.

But it begs the very question of why.
Why isn’t a baptism of repentance good enough?
And the answer to that question is the overarching theme
of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome.

This letter isn’t about baptism,
and it isn’t about repentance.
It is about our election.
You and I have been elected.
Elected by God’s grace in Jesus Christ.
Elected, called through God’s love.

Our election did not come about because we campaigned.
It didn’t come about because we had better public relations,
or better advertisements, or more volunteers.
Our election came as a gift.
a gift given to us for no reason other than God’s love for us.
God made that point very clear when he chose the children of Israel.
It wasn’t because God thought them better than others.
It was just because God chose them.
God chose them so that others would know of God’s love
and mercy through them.
God has chosen you and me so that others will know of God’s love
and mercy through you and me.

Do you remember Paul’s story before he became a follower of Jesus Christ?
He was known as Saul.
Like Nicodemus, Saul was a Pharisee,
he was a leader in the religious community,
He was a leader of those who persecuted the followers of Jesus Christ.
He was also a man who prayed to God,
a man who believed he possessed the truth.
If ever a man fancied himself a faithful man of God, it was Saul.
If ever a man was far removed from God, it was Saul
But through grace Paul was saved,
saved by the love of God.
Saul BG, before grace,
became Paul AG, after grace.

Our election is a manifestation of God’s goodness.
Our election is a manifestation of God’s grace.
Because of God’s grace, we have been chosen
even though we are sinners,
even though we have not done anything to earn our election.

But we have been elected for a reason.
We have been given this gift for a reason.
We have been elected and graced with God’s love
that we might then take that love out into the world
as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.
We have been graced with a gift from God
and we must respond to that gift.

We have been born into a new life in Christ,
born from above through water and the Spirit
as Jesus teaches Nicodemus;
or baptized into a new life through Christ,
as Paul tells the Romans.
As you hear every Sunday,
“the old ways have passed
and a new life has begun.”

We have been given new life in Christ,
new life through Christ,
new life because of Christ.
We have got to respond to that gift!
We can keep going along in our BG, before grace, lives.
Or we can live AG, after grace lives.
The choice is ours.
But Paul puts the question to us squarely:
“how can we who died to sin go on living in it?”
Paul is asking you and me, each of us that question
right here and right now.
What is your answer?
You had better have an answer.
Paul’s answer was to become a servant in Christ.
a servant of Christ.
Paul traveled constantly,
was beaten, jailed, mocked, spat on.
and finally killed.

We’ve been given a gift,
but we will also be called to account for what we did with the gift.
when we stand before our Lord in judgment.
And the questions that will be asked of us will not be,
as some of the more strident Christians wail,
Did you bring prayer back to the schools?
Did you put plaques with the Ten Commandments on the wall?
Did you sit in judgment of the sins of my children,
your brothers and sisters in Christ?
No, the questions will be:
Did you live your own life in prayer?
Did you follow the Ten Commandments?
Did you reach out the children in our society,
those whom Jesus found so precious?
Did you reach out to the sick and the poor and the lonely?
Did you love, love not only those who loved you,
but did you love those who hated you
those you thought of as enemies?
Did you share the good news of the gospel with others?
And that question is not, how many people did you convert?
After all, God is the one who does the converting, not us.
Did you simply share the good news of God’s love with others
and then pray for them?

You and I have been called for a reason,
we have been called to serve,
called to do our part to build the Kingdom on Earth,
called to carry on with Christ’s work.
We’ve been given new life in Christ through water and spirit,
born anew, to life in the Spirit,
Theologian Karl Barth sums up this new life well
“My new life is the ‘ought’ and ‘can’,
the ‘must’ and ‘will’, … (Karl Barth, Romans, 195)

You and I have been chosen,
and now the one who chose us invites us.
Invites us to come to his table,
Invites us to drink deeply and eat richly
Invites us to refresh our spirits.
Invites us to remember that we have been gifted with grace
that we have been given new life through him
and because of him.
Come to this table to renew yourself
The one who chose you,
The one who now invites you, awaits your grateful response.
Amen