Baptismal exhortation, Palm Sunday

I read from Psalm 118:17: I will not die, but live, and tell of the works of the LORD. The LORD has disciplined me severely, but He has not given me over to death.

From the time of Augustine, Christians have read the Psalms as the words of Christ. In the original context, the “I” of the Psalms may be David or Moses or Asaph or some unknown poet. But the words they record point ahead to the Christ. The book of Psalms records the praise, thanksgiving, lament, and wisdom of Jesus.

Jesus enters Jerusalem in the confidence of this Psalm. The crowds declare He is the one who comes in the Name of Yahweh, and Jesus knows the whole Psalm. He knows He is going to His death. He has already been pushed toward Sheol more than once. He knows that the Jewish leaders are plotting against Him. But He enters Jerusalem with the faith of the Psalmist, and He goes to His death with these words on His lips: “I will not die, but live, and tell the works of the Lord.”

Baptism joins us to Christ, Paul says, in His death and burial so that, having died to Sin and Death, we might walk in newness of life. Baptism joins us to Christ, and that means that the songs of Jesus become our songs. Our voices are mingled with His, so that in Him we too may say “I will not die, but live, and tell the works of Yahweh.” Psalm 118 is the song of Jesus; and it is the song of the baptized.

What do we sing when we sing this? What are we saying? We are saying, first, that we have confidence that God will give life, confidence that death will not have us. In Scripture, life and death are not purely biological realities. They are more social, relational. To be cut off from your people or your land is a kind of death. To be barren and infertile is a kind of death. To suffer afflictions is a kind of death. As the song of the baptized, Psalm 118 proclaims the promise that the Lord will rescue us from every danger and every threat. He will not give life only by keeping our heart beating and our lungs breathing. He will give us life in its fullness; He will give abundant life, rich and full life. Whatever the threats, we can remind ourselves that we belong to Jesus, and have confidence that we will live and not die.

But, second, as the song of the baptized, this song also gives us a purpose for life. What does God preserve us and not give us to death? Why does He discipline us but not kill us? The Psalmist says that He does this so that we can “tell” the works of the Lord. The verb means “write” or “record.” Our purpose in life, God’s purpose in maintaining us in life, is so that we can “record” or “write” of His works. The Psalmist is doing that by writing the Psalm in the first place: Yahweh has kept him from death, and so he records the Lord’s deliverance in poetry. We repeat that recording when we sing the Psalm, when we thank God for His eternal lovingkindness, when we praise Him, when we bear witness to His righteousness, justice, mercy, and love. Baptism calls us to “martyrdom” in its original sense; baptism calls us to be witnesses to God’s works.

Today, by the waters of baptism, your daughter is being formally admitted into the church, which is the body of Christ. She is being ritually joined to Christ Himself. She is joining the choir that sings Psalm 118, the song of the baptized. Train her to sing it well, to sing it with faith and hope, to say with the Psalmist and with Jesus, “I will not die, but live, and record the works of Yahweh.”