Like any initiation, baptism changes our lives. However, unlike your initiation into the National Junior High Honor Society (which didn't change my life for more than an hour or two), this initiation says something about your whole life from this point on. It says something about how you see yourself and how you relate to God.
In the catechism, the Reformers pose this question about Holy Baptism: "What does such baptizing with water indicate?"
And to that question they give this answer: "It indicates that the Old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever."
We can pick apart some of the words in this answer in the comments below if you want, but let me highlight one thing: From the moment of baptism on, your life is a life shaped by dying and rising. As a sinner, you deserve to die. And as a baptized believer, you will die every day. You will turn aside from your sinful self, leaving it to die.
Using baptismal language, you don't just leave that sinful person, (s)he is DROWNED. It is the point when you were brought into a new life. So you always take the part of yourself that is associated with the old life and "drown" it in the font. When you "rise up" from the font, you rise up to live the life that Jesus calls you to live. You leave behind the life of sin.
St. Paul used this kind of language to describe a life shaped by baptism in Romans chapter six: "We were therefore buried with Him [Jesus] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Romans 6:4)
No comments:
Post a Comment