New Life!
Entering the Family of
God
On Baptism
Discipleship Questions for Sunday June
24, 2007
Scripture Readings:
First Reading:
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm: 139
Second Reading: 1Peter
2:9-12
Gospel: Luke Matthew
28:19-22
Ezek. 37:1 The hand of the LORD was upon me,
and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a
valley; it was full of bones. 2
He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these
bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign LORD,
you alone know.” 4
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them,
‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5
This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter
you, and you will come to life. 6
I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with
skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know
that I am the LORD.’” 7. So I
prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a
rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh
appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the
breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD
says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that
they may live.’” 10 So I
prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and
stood up on their feet—a vast army. 11 Then he said to me: “Son of man,
these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up
and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12
Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the
Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you
up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that
I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you
will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I
the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”
Psa. 139:1
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts
from afar. 3 You discern my going
out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you
know it completely, O LORD. 5 You
hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for
me, too lofty for me to attain. 7
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are
there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will
guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light
become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night
will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your
works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret
place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed
body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them
came to be. 17 How precious to me
are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with
you. 19 If only you would slay
the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name. 21
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against
you? 22 I have nothing but hatred
for them; I count them my enemies. 23
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
1Pet. 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him
who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now
you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have
received mercy. 11
Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world,
to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the
pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good
deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Matt. 28:19
Therefore
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very
end of the age.”
Matt. 28:19
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything
I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the
age.”
“Go and MAKE disciples – baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
This is both our charge and the formula for the Sacrament of Baptism!
Jesus is commanding us to do this and He’s telling us to do
it in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Immediately after this Homily we will celebrate this
wonderful sacrament and you will hear me
say those words over Maggie Gene – I baptize you in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Sprit Amen!”
Now in Old Testament times the rite of entry
into the chosen people of God was through circumcision but this entry rite was
replaced in the New Testament with the Sacrament of Baptism and it became the
entry rite into the Church of Christ.
In Colossians chapter 2 beginning at verse 9 we read:
Col. 2:9
For in Christ all
the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and you have been given
fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised,
in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the
hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in
baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised
him from the dead.
And so from the
earliest days of the Christian era mothers and fathers have brought their
children soon after birth to the Church for the Sacrament of Baptism.
Throughout the
ages the ancient church has held that there are 7 sacraments and Baptism is the
entry sacrament to all of the others.
These 7 sacraments are:
Baptism, the
Eucharist, Confirmation (or Chrismation), Confession,
Anointing of the Sick, marriage, and Holy Orders.
Sacraments are
given to us by God as “Means of His grace.”
What we mean by this is that through the Sacraments God shares the
largess of Heaven.
Let me put it this
way – it’s through the syringe of the Sacraments that God can inject us with
the medicine of heaven.
Now God can do
this in many many ways but the sacraments are clearly
one of His primary methods for accomplishing this.
They are not
merely empty rituals but since they are truly sacraments they accomplish what
they intend - they actually convey the reality
for which they stand. So the Sacrament
of Baptism stands for and conveys washing from sins and entry into he family of God.
A Sacrament communicates the grace or power of God through the use
of material objects.
In the 4th-century St.
Augustine's defined a sacrament as an
"outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
A sacrament conveys God's grace independently of the faith or moral character of the
celebrant or recipients. Its value springs from its divine institution,
"from the work already done" (Latin “ex opere operato”),
in which the sacrament participates.
We must never forget that for this sacrament to be fully
appropriated by its recipient the recipient must lean in of what our Latin
forefathers have referred to as “ex opere operantis” ("from
the work being done").
Now I want to
quote from William H. Willimon in his wonderful book
“Worship as Pastoral Care” as he leads us into a deeper understanding of what a
sacrament really is:
“In contrast to
the human-centered, human-conditioned, Enlightenment view of the sacraments,
Christian theology has traditionally asserted that God is the actor, and we are
the recipients of what God does through the sacraments. The efficacy of the sacraments does not
entirely depend upon us, upon our ability to love God or to lead holy
lives. In his infinite love, God has not
left us alone. God continually,
graciously, gives Himself to us and makes Himself
available to us through touched, tasted, experienced, visible means. This, God does (thank God)
in spite of our best intentions.
We do not have to make it happen!
If we be loved and
if we be healed and if we be saved, it is first and forever because of God’s
own active, self-giving, initiating love.
As Calvin said: ‘He condescends
to lead us to Himself by these earthly elements, and
to set before us in the flesh a mirror of spiritual blessings . . . He imparts spiritual things under
visible ones.’”
So what happens to me when I am baptized? What’s really happening here at a very deep
level?
Willimon reminds us that:
“Baptism is proclamation and experience of the fact that we
are who we are because God has first chosen us and loved us and called us into
His Kingdom. To the question, Who am I? baptism responds that I
am the one who is called, washed, named, promised, and commissioned!”
Baptism gives me the way and means to draw nearer and
nearer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and thereby closer and closer to the
person I was created to be!
Why does God want us to be baptized? Ah this, to me, is the real question that
begins to plum the depth of what’s really happening in Baptism.
Remember the Apostle Peter reminds us that
Christians are what?
1Pet. 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people belonging to God,
that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his
wonderful light. 10 Once you were
not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received
mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as
aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war
against your soul. 12 Live such
good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they
may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Ah! Why are we
baptized? Can you see it yet? Because our God loves us and wants to call us to our coronation
into His royal priesthood.
We’re chosen and baptism is our coronation into our royal
citizenship! Into our regal priestly
calling!
And in the fullness and power of our Baptismal authority
we’re to no longer live as the world lives – no longer allow our hearts and
minds be conformed to the world’s ways but we are to live as aliens and
strangers in this strange shadowland. To live good lives among the pagans around us
so that they will be drawn to glorify God because of our behavior and
ultimately be drawn through the entrance gate of Baptism to their own heavenly
calling as royal members of God’s heavenly priesthood – here on earth!
When Maggie Gene is Baptized very soon this will be her
royal coronation and while most of us won’t be able to see into the heavenly
realm that will break through in her baptismal coronation we can rest assured
that heaven will be replete with great celebration when one soul enters into
God’s Kingdom!
Heavenly music will be playing and all of heaven will stop
and look upon her and upon us who are now responsible for our spiritual
formation into the dream God has dreamed for her. Amen and Amen!”