What’s New About the New Life?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 6, 2016

Fourth Sunday in Lent

What’s New About the New Life?

Colossians 2:12

The baptismal font stands prominently in our chancel.

We fill it with water before every service.

You see me take the pitcher

as Deborah calls us to quiet and center ourselves

with the Westminster chimes.

At the 8:30 service,

I pour about half the water into the font.

At the beginning of the 11:00 o’clock service,

I pour the rest of the winter into the bowl,

the water linking our two services,

reminding us that while

we have two worship services,

we are one worshiping community.

                          

We are one group of disciples of Jesus Christ,

a diverse group sharing a common faith;

a diverse group sharing one baptism,

one baptism in the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.

One baptism because baptism for us

marks the start of our lives

as disciples of Jesus Christ,

the baptismal font acting as the doorway into

the universal church of Jesus Christ,

the font representing the “big carpenter hands”

of our Lord Jesus opened wide in welcome.

Baptism is our beginning;

baptism is our entrance;

baptism is our initiation;

but most important,

baptism is our welcome as followers of Jesus Christ.

For the apostle Paul, though,

there was more,

much more to baptism.

Baptism to Paul was nothing less than rebirth,

rebirth to new life,

a symbolic resurrection.

So, in our text we hear these words:

“when you were buried with [Christ] in baptism,

you were also raised with him

through faith in the power of God,

who raised him from the dead.”

Or as Paul wrote to the Romans,

“…we have been buried with [Christ]

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.”

(Romans 6:4)

The great theologian Karl Barth

summed up Paul’s theology of baptism, writing:

“The one who emerges from the water

is not the same as the one who entered it.

One person dies and another is born.”

One person dies to the old life,

and another is born to new life.

New life:

but what is this new life

we were born to through baptism?

It is the life our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to,

the life that Christ himself modeled;

the life Jesus calls us to live here and now.

It is a life that is often at odds

with the life the world around us

calls us to live.

It is a life often at odds with our own desires,

our own way of thinking,

our own comfort and security.

It is first and foremost a life of service,

as we follow the One who came

“not to be served, but to serve.”

(Mark 10:45)

It is a life of self-denial, even sacrifice

as we follow the One who says to us,

“if any want to become my followers,

let them deny themselves

and take up their cross and follow me.”

(Matthew 16:24)

It is a life of humility and modesty,

as we follow the One who humbled himself

and became obedient

even “to the point of death,

even death on a cross.”

(Philippians 2:8)

                 

It is a life of forgiveness,

a life of mercy,

a life of compassion,

and a life of unconditional love.

It is not a life of anger;

it is not a life,

as Reverend Kabo said so well last week,

that leads us to rage,

and then on to judgment.

It is not a life marked by the tenor of

so much of our public conversation these days:

a life of insults,

a life marked by racism,

sexism,

bigotry of any kind

toward any person

or any group.

Pope Francis recently spoke of this new life

when he said,

“A person who thinks only about building walls,

wherever they may be,

and not building bridges,

is not Christian.”

Strip away the political context

in which he made his comment,

and what he is saying is clear:

the person reborn,

living fully into the new life begun in baptism

is one who tears down walls;

one who builds bridges,

one who, as God said through the prophet,

is a “the repairer of the breach.”

(Isaiah 58:12)

Some criticized the Pope for his remarks,

but he was just telling it like it is,

telling us how the gospel calls us to live

our resurrection lives.

As Karl Barth observed,

“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.”

Or, put another way,

it is up to each of us decide whether

we will live the new life in Christ,

or whether we will slip back into

the comfortable old life we find so

easy and appealing.        

“Baptism demonstrates

the dawn of the rule of God in personal life….

It is the door of grace.”

writes theologian Jurgen Moltmann.

Moltmann goes on to remind us that

it is the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper

that sustains us in this new life

we are graced with

through the sacrament of baptism.

So as we gather at our Lord’s Table,

as you take the bread of life

and drink from the cup of salvation

offered you by your sister in Christ,

your brother in faith,

feel yourself reborn,

feel yourself refreshed,

as though you were coming up again

out of the waters

the power of God’s Holy Spirit

coursing through you.

You – reborn, into new life,

into a light-filled world,

a grace-filled world.

You, coming up out of the water

to follow our Lord Jesus Christ.

AMEN