Baptism: God’s Gift of A New Life - 2nd Corinthians 5:13-21
We went to the hospital the first time the
week of June 12, 1995. They said at
twenty-nine weeks it was much too early.
The doctors and nurses, though, prepared for the two of them to refuse
to cooperate and sent a barrage of steroids in to develop his lungs. However, after an IV specialist team came in
and started plenty of fluids, hours of heartbeat monitoring, and some quiet
time, everything, other than the 1 centimeter of dilation, was back to
normal. After four more trips to the
hospital in labor and four more trips home with it stopped, we went the sixth
and final time on August 14th.
Weighing in at 10 pounds, 3 ½ ounces, Davey came into this world at 12:50
pm, two weeks early (possibly the last time he was early to anything). A birth, a new life, I don’t think I’ll ever
forget the moment that Davey was brought out of the womb by the doctors during
the C-section and that first cry as the blood and amniotic fluid were being cleared
from his body.
For several weeks now, we have been talking
about the gift that God has given to us called Baptism. We reflected on how Baptism itself is a mark
of God’s grace. It is our recognition
that God’s grace is already present and at work within us before we even
recognize it—prevenient grace. There is
nothing that we can do, no prayer we pray, no action we take, that can ever
earn that grace of God poured into our lives.
This is one reason why we, from the early days of our denomination, have
baptized children and infants, as well as teens and adults…each stands equally
undeserving of grace, and yet on all, God has poured out that grace.
We considered how one of the gifts that God
presents to us in Baptism is the gift of family. We recognized that as these waters pour over
our head, we are brought, by the working of the Holy Spirit, into God’s
family. We are made brothers and Sisters
of Christ and children of our God. We
are then sisters and brothers with everyone who has received the waters of
Baptism and have become part of the largest family the world has ever known, a
family you won’t find recorded at ancestry.com but a family recorded in the
Book of Life. We also were reminded that
Sunday that this family that we are part of should not be marked by the abuse,
neglect, pain, or abandonment that so many of our earthly families experience,
but that God’s family should be marked by humility, love, and kindness, and
that this family should influence our earthly families.
Last week we considered how in being joined to
Christ through the waters of this gift we call Baptism, also brings us God’s gift
of forgiveness. Joined to Christ, when
God, who is a just God, looks down upon us, He does not see our sin-filled
bodies, but sees the sacrifice of His innocent Son upon the cross, and rather
than give us the death our sins deserve, he offers us forgiveness and mercy. We experience God’s justifying grace.
Grace…new family…forgiveness—where does that
bring us? It brings us to yet another
gift found in the waters of Baptism, the gift of “new life.” Hear the words of Paul again, “So if anyone
is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything
has become new!” If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything
old has passed away; see, everything has become new…that is powerful my
friends, if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation.
The power of these words is that they are not
Paul’s alone, they echo the very words of Christ. Remember the story of that evening with the
Pharisee Nicodemus. He came to Jesus and
said, “‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one
can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you,
no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above [or “born anew”
or “born again,” depending on your translation.’” Being born from above? It left Nicodemus’ head spinning. “‘How can anyone be born after having grown
old? Can one enter a second time into
the mother’s womb and be born?’”
My friends, if that kind of thinking about
crawling back into his mother’s womb caused Nicodemus to shutter…just think of
how any mother who has given birth would feel if that is what Jesus meant. Jesus, realizing that Nicodemus had missed
the point, sought to clarify himself, “‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can
enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.’”[i]
I really think this famous encounter is what
Paul had in mind when he offered the words of “if anyone is in Christ there is
a new creation.” Maybe he avoided the “being
born again” imagery to keep the children and mothers from shuddering, and
simply talked about becoming a new creation.
It is all one and the same. Where are we born, as Jesus discussed, by
water and the Spirit? It is here, under
these waters of our Baptism. Where does
God join us to Christ and make us a new creation? It is here, under these waters of our Baptism.
Our old self dies and we rise from those waters a new creation.
What does it mean to be a new creation? What does it mean to be born from above, be
born again, be born anew? What does it
mean to have God’s Spirit enter us and make us into something that we have
never been before?
It means so much more than we could ever
imagine or conceive.
As forgiven, new creations, it means that our
past no longer has any hold on us. It
means those sins that we have committed in the past, no longer have to haunt
us. (Does that mean that God is going to
miraculously take away any earthly consequences of those sins? Well maybe, but most likely not. Withdrawal will most likely have to be gone
through, tickets may still have to be paid or jail time served, the loss of
family may still happen…). However, it
means that those sins will no longer bring us the final consequence of
sin—eternal separation from God. It
means that those sins no longer have to keep us in a pattern of sinning. We are new creations, we have a new life, we
can begin to live in a completely different way.
It means that if we were an addict, we no
longer have to be an addict. It means
that if we were an adulterer, that we no longer have to live in that sin. It means that if we were a liar, or a gossip,
or one who regularly “cussed like a sailor,” that we no longer have to sin with
our lips. It means that that if we lived
out the sin of greed by seeking to gain more and more regardless of who we
hurt, that we can now become people of generosity, giving away more than we
keep for ourselves. Being a new
creation, being born again…it is about becoming a completely new and difference
person, whoever we are and wherever we are.
It also means, as Paul said, “we regard no one
from a human point of view….” It means,
my friends, that when someone comes under these waters, we can no longer see
them the same way. That means, sisters
and brothers, that if a drug dealer came forward to receive the waters of
baptism, as God made her a new creation, we could no longer regard her as a dealer. We would see the new person, our sister in
Christ. It means that if a gang member,
all covered in his markings, came in and received the waters of baptism, that
the only mark we would see upon him has no ink in it whatsoever, but the mark
of the Holy Spirit, as the waters run down his face. As folks, whether it be us or others, come
under the waters of Baptism, we and they no longer remain who we were, we are
made new…given new birth…born again…a new creation.
It also effects how we see those who have not
surrendered to this gift of grace that God offers. As God has remade us, we are charged with
bringing others into a relationship with Him, that they might be made new
creations: “All this is from God, who
reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of
reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of
reconciliation to us. So we are
ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.” Just as the
Father sent our Lord and Savior, and through Baptism, our brother, into the
world not to condemn the world, but in order that all the world might be saved
through Him, we aren’t sent into the world to condemn others, but to call them
into this new-life-giving relationship—to help them recognize this gift of
grace, to become part of this new family, to experience the grace of
forgiveness, to be made new creations in this world, but no longer of it.
My brothers and sisters, this new life that is
God’s gift to us, is a powerful life. It
is a chance at a new beginning, a fresh start.
It is a call to see the power of God’s redemptive work in creating
others new. It is the honor of being an
ambassador, a representative of God Himself in the lives of others.
And, my brothers and sisters, while baptism is
a once in a lifetime event, the opportunity to be born anew through the power
of God’s Holy Spirit is an event that God offers with the rising of each sun,
the passing of each second. We each,
today and every day, have the opportunity to live a new life as a gift from
God. Will you accept it? Will you use it? Will you offer it?
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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