Proper 13 - E - 2013 - Hidden With Christ in Baptism

The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Baptism Sermon

August 4, 2013 - Pastor Adam Moline
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-26                  Colossians 3:1-11                Luke 12:13-21

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Our text this morning is from the Epistle lesson just read, especially these words, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”  Thus far our text. 

Dear friends in Christ.  You have died.  Your life is hidden with Christ.  All of you.  It happened to you just as it happens to a little baby  in baptism.  Water was poured on your head, God’s word was spoken, and you died, right there, and your life was hidden with Christ. 

You needed to die.  In fact you were required to die because of your sin.  It weighed upon you heavily, declaring you to be guilty in the eyes of our Holy and Just God.  As scripture says, you were born sinful, surely from your mother’s womb you were sinful.  Sinful to the point of death. 

Our text today describes what that sin was.  Each of us was born full of sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  And not just those things, but also anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.  That sin infects our thoughts, our words, and our deeds.  And because of that sin, we must die.

There are two options for our death to sin.  One option is that of which God told Adam in the Garden of Eden.  “If you sin, if you disobey my command, you shall surely die.”  There were no ifs, ands, or buts.  It was a clear statement made by God.  And so when Adam fell into sin, he began to die. 

And I don’t only mean physically.  The death Adam faced for his sin was also a spiritual death.  It meant not a promise of eternity in peace with God, but rather an eternity of suffering, an eternity without the God who richly and daily provides us with all we need to support this body and life.  Sin meant Hell for Adam, and all who followed after him in sin. 

Word’s cannot describe the terror that is the spiritual death of Hell.  The best words can do is speak of weeping and gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness.  There the worm does not die, but is always consuming your dead body.  There the flames do not go out, but are always burning the sinner, destroying forever.  That is the special death God has reserved for sinners, for those apart from him. 

But there is another death, and it is the death we have all died together.  Yes we still are sinners, but we are sinners who have already died – with Christ.  We died in water and the word, as the Word in and with the water took away our sins, and clothed us not in our sin, but instead in the righteousness of Christ. 

In baptism we truly die – and we face the punishment for our sin, but we face it not alone, but with our Lord and Savior Christ.  For in baptism, our life is hidden with his.  In baptism we are joined with Christ, so that we die with him upon the cross.  We face the mighty judgment of God’s wrath with Christ, as He bleeds and dies for us.  We lay dead in a tomb, with Christ, who for three days was buried graveyard dead.  And because our life is hidden with Christ in baptism, when he is risen from the dead, we are promised to rise as well. 

And so the baptized baby has already died and risen with Jesus.  The baptized baby has already received the promise of eternal life, and not only the promise but has received eternal life itself.  The baby will never spiritually die again, but at the moment of physical death will immediately be spiritually alive with Christ until the last day when all will rise again. 

And this promise is not just for baptized babies, but is also for you dear friends, who are a touch older than babies.  For baptism isn’t just a onetime event.  It is a lifelong process.  Every day of your life, you are baptized.  As Luther says in the catechism, each day you arise and drown your sin in the waters of baptism.  You are a baptized Christian today, and you will be even forever more. 

In your baptism, your life was hidden with Christ.  In baptism you have died already.  In baptism you are alive forever more with Jesus.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.  You have the whole inheritance of Heaven, because your sin is gone with Jesus, and you will live for ever more because of baptism.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.