( Col. 2: 12 – 15 ) - [ Deutsch ] - [ Akündigungen536.18 KB ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
With him you have been buried in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Beloved in the Lord!
Today we celebrate the Sunday Quasimodogeniti, which means: “As the new born children “. This Sunday is also called the “White Sunday”, because in the olden times all those adults, who were baptised on Easter Sunday went to church with their white robes. In our case our baptism lies much further away than just one week. Today we want to look at the meaning and effect of our baptism. What happened to us through our baptism? In connection with the name of this Sunday we can say: In our baptism we have been born again. Allow me to subdivide our text into 3 sub-topics:1) Baptism gives us new life as a gift, 2) It liberates and relieves us of our guilt and 3) It keeps our path, our relationship towards God open.
1.
Baptism gives us new life as a gift.
What is meant here is not in the first place a change in our moral behaviour but through baptism a new life starts. When Nicodemus went to Jesus by night asking him what he needs to do to receive eternal life, he expected Jesus to give him a long list of dos and don’ts, laws and rules to improve his way of life. But Jesus told him, that we need to be reborn. So, it is not about a mind-shift, changing our thinking, conduct and actions, but about a new being, a new existence.
But is it really true that we have changed through our baptism? Don’t we experience daily that the old person in us, the “old Adam”, as Luther called it, is still very alive; that we still fail, that we are still unloving and unkind and that we are still capable of very bad thoughts? But our text says that we were “buried with Christ”. Through our baptism we became share-holders of Christ’s suffering, his dying and his act of salvation. It is like a new born child. This child is born with many capabilities. But the child does not know it yet. So, the capabilities are already there but have to be discovered – they must be stimulated and come to life. The same applies to our baptism. First of all, we receive a share of Jesus’ saving action as a gift – there is nothing we can do to earn it – it is totally a gift of grace from God! It is not about infant or adult baptism; about how much or how little we believe. It is about what we receive through what Christ did for us. It has got nothing to do with how we are! We however need to grow in faith to be able to recognize and appreciate this god-given gift in its depth and greatness. In baptism, I have become a new being. If I do continue to live in the flesh, live sinfully, then it is only because I have forgotten who I really am in God’s eyes. To live as a baptised means: I take my baptism seriously; I remind myself that I have become a new person, one with Christ. Every time I have a shower, I may remind myself: The old is washed away, I am new in Christ and rejoice in it! We need to discover who we have become as the little child discovers and develops its own capabilities and qualities. It is not enough to say about our weaknesses: That is how I am, take it or leave it, but rather to realize that God gives us through his Spirit the power to work on them. So, an alcoholic or drug addict can be liberated from that enslavement; an unloving behaviour can change to a loving person; an indifferent person can become a caring person; the constant concern about one self can change to a concern about the other. Again, that does not happen through our own power but by living in Christ with whom we have become one through baptism. Baptism gives us new life and to seek it and to live by it, that is our task and we seek to live it by seeking guidance through his word and through prayer. You will not grow in faith if you do not seek guidance in God’s word!
2.
Baptism liberates and relieves us of our guilt.
Through our baptism we are freed from our past. Through our baptism, through our being one with Jesus, our sinful past, our guilt is buried. The old Adam dies with Jesus on the cross and the new Adam is raised, through Jesus’ resurrection – this off course is picture language. Do we need forgiveness? Is it not
convenient to remain in the old life? But we know that an unforgiven or suppressed guilt does never give us peace. It is impossible to have a healthy and undisturbed relationship with God and our fellow human beings as long as an old guilt has not been resolved or forgiven – it remains in us and grinds us from within like cancer. If we fail to have a deep and open relationship with God it often is the result of an unforgiven sin or guilt – it stands between God and ourselves. The same applies to our relationship to our fellow human beings. Once we have hurt someone, it will weigh heavily on our mind and burden the relationship, it will cause separation or pain until reconciliation or forgiveness has been found. An unforgiven guilt remains a burden for both parties, the one that inflicted the hurt and the one that was hurt. Such a guilt or hurt can even cause physical illness.
Our text speaks about our “unfavourable record of our debts”. Also, in the life of a Christian the sinful life, the failures and unloving life is not something of the past. We know what terrible things are done or said even by Christians. Are we not sometimes shocked about our own thoughts and actions? We so easily see the sinfulness and the evil of others and have difficulty to acknowledge our own shortcomings and failures. On a daily basis we break relationships or hurt feelings, whether in our marriage, family, at work, in the community or in our congregation. It is difficult to acknowledge our own wrong-doing and even more difficult to confess them. If our relationship to God and our fellow humans needs to be free of such guilt and hurt, then a lot needs to be forgiven! Beloved, Jesus has done exactly that!
Our text uses the image of a cancelled record of our debts. Our letter of debt, our guilt or sin has been nailed to the cross by God himself. It is gone! In those days, when someone was crucified, the reason for his execution was written on a piece of paper and nailed to the cross. Now our records of guilt are hanging on the cross. Now our records are the receipt for Jesus’ death and they are nailed to his cross. We should actually write down, at least in our thoughts, our transgressions of the day on a piece of paper and symbolically bring them to the cross. Jesus will take them from us. His work on the cross is accom- plished! We only need to admit to our failures and confess them! The same applies to our transgressions over against our fellow humans. Who ever does it will experience a deep relief and liberation? How else would we want to get rid of such a burden? Holy Communion has the same function – also there we bring our record of guilt to the Father, to the cross of Jesus and they are taken away!
Again, through our baptism we share in Jesus’ death on the cross. His statement:” It is fulfilled, it is accomplished”, becomes valid and real for us. That is why we should be reminded of our baptism regularly.
3.
Our baptism keeps our path, our relationship towards God open.
In verse 15 in our text, we read: God has freed us from the powers and authorities. What are those powers and authorities? It could be an ideology, an enslavement or the power of advertising. They are those concerns in our life, that alienate us from God, those things that enslave us, that further our selfishness and our self-enrichment, very often on account of others and lead us away from God’s command to love and make us guilty. Our text, however, says that we are buried with our guilt through our baptism with Christ but are risen with him. We are free. Jesus took it away and nailed it to the cross.
This tells us that no power, no concern or worry can destroy us anymore because those that are assured of their victory will on their way to their goal, though having to face hardships, receive the strength to overcome the stones in their way, because they can already see their victory – like the light in the long dark tunnel. In Christ God has conquered all powers that want to enslave us, that want to oppress or depress us, that want to pull us away from him – he has taken away their final power and therewith opened the path to him, to be one with him and with our fellow humans. And now in my troubles I no longer just need to look at myself, but can empathetically suffer with the other; no longer do I need to be consoled but can console others, now no longer a light needs to be lit for me, now I can be a light for others.
The goal and the victory have been given to us. Let us, with Luther, especially when darkness threatens to engulf us shout with joy and peace: “I am baptized!” That may be our companion wherever we find ourselves. Through our baptism we belong to Christ, share in his death and resurrection and his saving mission. We belong to him. Let us live as his redeemed children. Amen.
May God’s peace, which is far beyond our human understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in the union with Christ Jesus. Amen.