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Sometimes in life in order to understand where we are at in things we need to step back and examine what we would call the “big picture”. Faith plays a big role in that. If we are of the conviction that our lives somehow fit into the “Big Picture” of what God is doing in God’s very good Creation we will value things and go about life differently than if we thought we were just here fending for ourselves.
Our reading from Romans this morning is one of the Apostle Paul’s “Big Picture” moments. On the surface it seems to be about what Baptism is but when you start mulling on it, it becomes one of those places where we catch a glimpse of Paul’s “Big Picture” of what God did do, is doing, and will do in, through and as Jesus the Christ. When we get inside his “Big Picture” one thought that really sticks out is that in, through, and as Jesus Christ God has changed human existence. Jesus is the new Man, Christ, as opposed to the old Man, Adam. As the old humanity flowed forth from Adam so now in Jesus Christ there is a new human existence coming forth. The difference is that the new human is in union with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit and that changes everything. In Paul’s thinking God is changing humanity from “in Adam” to “in Christ”. At the end of the Age, the Day of Resurrection when Jesus returns, the change will be complete. All Creation will be made new. Until that time God the Holy Spirit is at work calling people to fidelity to Jesus Christ, creating a community of people centered on him who have a sense of this new life in Christ in which we are being healed of our Sin-sickness.
The old humanity, which Paul would call “in Adam” and which Paul names after the Bible’s story of Adam being the first human, is diseased. We are sick in our minds with a disease called Sin that twists our perception of reality to be grossly self-oriented. It makes us misunderstand God, ourselves, and each other. We are unable to perceive God as we should and so we put ourselves and other “idols” into the place of God and in turn we each do not just do bad things, but rather we do evil things even when we think we are doing good.
This disease of Sin culminates in Death and though death frees us from the misery of Sin we are especially fearful of Death because it ultimately dethrones us as our own gods. Death, and particularly our ignorance of what comes after death, a-fears us with the fact that the day is coming for each of us when the unholy trinity of “Me, Myself, and I” will end, the day when “I” who likes to sing, ‘I did it my way” will be humbled if not humiliated into apparent non-existence because death shows no mercy.
But the finiteness of Death is not the final word in God’s very good Creation. Because God loves us and is deeply wounded to the core with our addiction to Sin, God has acted to heal us. In, through, and as Jesus Christ, God the Son took upon himself - unioned to himself - the Sin-diseased nature and flesh of the old humanity, “Adam”. Infusing himself into humanity is another way of putting it. Like putting a food colouring in water, the colouring works its way into every molecule of the water changing it to become colored water. (Also, forgive me for using the male singular pronouns. The more accurate pronouns for God would be Us-self, Our-self, and We-self but be a bit too distracting at the moment.)
Back to the topic, as Jesus, God and Sin-diseased humanity became one – two natures, one person. Just as Jesus touched lepers and took their disease upon himself and healed it, God took the disease of Sin into himself so that we will be healed. Jesus then lived the faithful life that we are unable to live though tempted in every way as we are. He then died the death that is the consequence of sin. Then God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead with a human body, indeed created matter, that is now healed from sin and that will not die - voila, the first born of the new humanity that Paul calls “in Christ”. In the wake of Easter God has poured the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus. And to keep us humble, I am quite sure the Holy Spirit is at work in people outside of what we would call the church. The Holy Spirit opens our eyes so that we see, experience, and understand the nature of God as God has revealed himself in Jesus as unconditional, self-giving, redeeming, healing Love. The Holy Spirit is at work in us healing our Sin-diseased nature making us desire to be more Christ-like, making us desire to live a faithful life. Then in the end when the Day comes, God will raise us from the dead as well. All creation will be healed of the futility it now suffers.
Back to Paul and his “Big Picture”; Baptism fits into this “Big Picture” as the moment a person has for certain passed from the Old Humanity of Adam into the New Humanity in Christ Jesus. It is the outward sign of an inward working as theologians of the past called it. Paul believed that Baptism is a mysterious participation in Jesus' own death and resurrection with the result that the person baptized has died the death that sin begot and is now alive to God in Christ. The person being baptized is in essence being put to death and raised to new life in Christ.
Understanding Baptism in Paul’s way is probably a bit out there for most of us. Most of us have probably just been taught that Baptism is simply a ritual Christians do to say they and their children are Christians. And, being Christian is simply a way of living where we clean up our acts and try not to do anything wrong so that we can stay on God’s good side.
But, that’s not what Paul says Baptism is!
Baptism is incorporation into a new humanity – a new human existence that God brought into being when Jesus was conceived in his mother’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit and brought to its completion with Jesus’ resurrection in the power of the Holy Spirit. We have called ourselves Homo Sapiens but now we are Homo Christiens. This new humanity is now at work in us as we are “in Christ” by the presence and work of the Holy Spirit who is in us freeing us from our enslavement to Sin and Death as we go about walking in the Way of Jesus.
Baptism is our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. With respect to that Paul writes, “You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Elsewhere he writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:19-20). For us, this basically means we are dead. We no longer have a claim to ourselves to do what we want to do with the lives we still live. Rather, we must live as disciples of Jesus in prayerful discernment in order to do what Jesus is doing in and through us in the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot seek conformity to the world but rather we must yield to the Spirit’s transformative power at work in renewing our aims and ambitions to reflect the new life called “in Christ”.
If we are to take Paul’s Big Picture seriously, then this is who each of us is. We each have died and been raised with Christ. We each belong to Jesus Christ who loves us each and gave his life for us each. Our lives will never be our own. Therefore, we must live as living witnesses to Jesus and the new life that is in us. God has rebirthed God’s image in us. As God is the loving Communion of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Three Persons who give themselves so completely to one another in unconditional love that they are One and the Same in Being, so are we to put “me, myself, and I” on the back burner and live according to unconditional love in all our relationships. Afterall, “me, myself, and I” was crucified and buried with Jesus. We must give space and time in our lives to foster the awareness that the Holy Spirit is with us – we are never alone. Nor are we left to our own efforts for the Holy Spirit is at work in each of us making us each more like Jesus. We must listen for Jesus to speak and sense the Holy Spirit’s moving and prodding. Most importantly, we must learn to rest ourselves in the sure knowing that we each are a beloved child of God and that God loves us each as much as he does Jesus, the only-begotten Son. We are each here to help and support each other in any way we can to remember who we are “in Christ” and to live as those who are alive to God. Amen.
