Baptismal meditation, April 3

Baptismal meditation, April 3 April 3, 2005

Romans 6: ?Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore, we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life . . . Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. . . . Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.?E

This is the Second Sunday of the Easter season. At least in some places and times, church has commemorated the resurrection of Jesus by celebrating Easter season as a baptismal season. Those who had been catechized and trained during Lent were brought to baptism at Easter, a sign that by baptism they were being ingrafted into the new life in Jesus Christ.

That baptism engrafts the baptized into new life in Christ is certainly a biblical theme. Paul?s teaching on baptism in Romans 6 comes on the heels of a passage where he has been comparing the roles of Adam and of Christ. Those who are in the first Adam are under the reign of Sin, and the result is condemnation and death. But through the Last Adam, Jesus, righteousness begins to reign, and through righteousness life.

All men are in solidarity with Adam by birth into the human race, but Paul teaches that those who have been baptized are baptized into the death of Jesus. The baptized have died to the old regime, and have been transferred from the sphere of Adam and Death into the realm of Christ, who is the Prince of Life. Those who share in Christ?s death will also share in His resurrection. Sin and Death are no longer masters, and in Jesus, we, like Jesus, live for God.

Baptism is not the end of the road for your children. It is the beginning. Today they die to Adam and begin to live in Christ, but they are called to persevere in their baptism, improving on the gift they receive here. Remind your children often of what they have received and how they are to respond to it. Train them from their earliest days to ?consider themselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus?E(Romans 6:11). Exhort them not to ?let sin reign in your mortal body,?Ebut instead to ?present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God?E(6:12-13). Teach them that they have been liberated from Sin and Death, they have passed through the waters of a new exodus, and are now slaves to God (6:20-21), and warn them not to turn back to Egypt. Teach them to humbly and gratefully cling to this gift that is given to them today, the gift of entry into the body of Christ, the gift of new life in the realm of the Last Adam.

Today is the Second Sunday of the Easter season. But every baptism is a small Easter. Every baptism enacts the events of holy week; every baptism brings the cross and resurrection of Jesus to bear on the baptized. Teach your children to live the life of the resurrection, by grace through faith. Teach them to live always out of Easter.


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