God's Re-Creation

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 10, 2013

Reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant

God’s Re-Creation

Romans 6:1-4

Many of you may have heard a distinctive voice in your heads

as we sang the opening hymn, “Morning Has Broken”.

You may well have heard the voice of the singer

once known as Cat Stevens.

Back in 1971,

back in the days of vinyl record albums and AM radio,

Stevens took what was a hymn written in 1931

and made it into a pop hit,

a hit that went almost to the top of the charts.

The song’s words had been written by an English poet,

who set them to the tune of a traditional Scottish melody.

Hundreds of others singers and musicians

have recorded the hymn since then.

The song is probably one of the most familiar hymns we have,

and that may well be its undoing:

we tend to tune out the familiar;

words we sing and pray regularly

tend lose their meaning after a while.

We say the words, or sing them,

but we don’t think about what it is

that we are saying or singing.

And that’s a shame with this song,

because the words remind us of the promise

the promise that is ours in and through our baptism:

the promise of new life.

In our baptism, we die to old life,

and are born to new life in Jesus Christ.

We are, in a word, re-created,

re-created as disciples of Christ,

re-created and transformed

by water and the Spirit

as we are born to new life in Christ.

You probably don’t recall the words you hear me say

each time we baptize someone,

beyond the very familiar,

“I baptize you in the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.”

The words of the liturgy can’t compete

with our focus on proud parents,

and adorable children.

But within the baptismal liturgy

I say words that sound very challenging,

words we heard Paul speak in our lesson:

“We thank you, O God, for the water of baptism.

In it we are buried with Christ in his death.

From it we are raised to share in his resurrection,

Through it we are reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

“Buried with Christ in his death?”

Yes, we die to the old life,

and are raised to share in the resurrection life,

the life of the Spirit, the life of Christ.

Yes, we are reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are reborn by the grace and love of God.

We are re-created to new life              

as we emerge from the waters of baptism,

even with the few drops of water

that might have been sprinkled on our foreheads,

even if we were too young to remember,

even if to the relief of our nervous parents,

we slept through the service.

As Karl Barth, the great theologian put it,

“The one who emerges from the water

is not the same as the one who entered it.

One person dies and another is born.”

In a few moments we will witness

how a hymn can be made new, transformed,

re-created.

No, we won’t baptize “Morning Has Broken”.

Our Choir will sing a new setting of the song;

the words will remain the same,

but the music written by the British composer

Bob Chilcott, re-creates them,

giving them new life,

glorious new life,

a familiar song reborn, re-created.

We are born to new life for a purpose of course.

We are born to new life to follow more faithfully

our Lord Jesus Christ;

to live joyfully in community,

serving one another;

living a life grounded in compassion,

goodness,

patience,

acceptance,

grace,

love.

Eugene Peterson, ever the master teacher,

helps us understand with his

wonderful paraphrasing of our lesson

from Paul’s letter to the Romans.

“….When we went under the water,

we left the old country of sin behind;

when we came up out of the water,

we entered into the new country of grace—

a new life in a new land!

That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means.

When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus;

when we are raised up out of the water,

it is like the resurrection of Jesus.

Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father

so that we can see where we’re going

in our new grace-sovereign country.”

Peterson captures it perfectly:

New life in a new land,

a land of grace and love,

a land in a light-filled world

where we are called to live in community

as part of the church universal,

or as we say in our confessions,

the catholic church, small “c”,

where the word “catholic” refers to the universal church,

all those who follow Christ,

and not just those of one particular denomination.

For “Baptism unites the people of God with each other,”

as our Book of Order teaches us,

“uniting us with the church of every time and place.

Barriers of race, gender, status, and age are to be transcended.

Barriers of nationality, history and practice are to be overcome.”

(W-2.3005)

That’s the new life we are called to,

but as we hear those words,

we realize how far we still have to go,

how far short we fall of embracing the life

God wants us to live,

for we surely have not yet transcended the barriers of race,

the barriers of gender,

the barriers of status,

the barriers of nationality, ethnicity, history…

Between denominations,

and even within denominations

ours is a history marked more by erecting barriers

than tearing them down.

Karl Barth reminds us that while we may receive the gift of new life

in our baptisms,

that doesn’t necessarily mean we will live the new life,

and make the most of our gift:

“It remains…a burning question

whether we … [will] venture to reckon with

the …possibility of the [re-created]”

man or woman each of us becomes in baptism.

Come up and embrace the gift given you

in your baptismal covenant.

Come up and embrace the new life,

the re-created life,

given you by water and the Spirit.

Come up, put your hand in the water,

the very font of life,

and then take the stone as a reminder both of your baptism

and your call to a life of prayer.

And then go, renewed,

ready, eager to serve.

For yes, “morning has broken”

and through baptism

God’s re-creation is you.

                 

AMEN