Journey from Death to Life

The Scripture lessons have been rather grim the last few weeks. You’ll remember that last week, on Fathers’ Day, Jesus said these words in Matthew’s Gospel: "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death…" Today’s Gospel reading is a continuation of that passage: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household." These are very difficult passages, and overall must be interpreted within the context of Jesus’ entire ministry, life, death and resurrection. But at the very least, Jesus’ words remind us of something it is so easy to forget: to be a Christian is a life-and-death matter. It is not a hobby or an extra-curricular activity. The church is not a civic or benevolent organization with a touch of prayer thrown in. Jesus talks about life and death.

And so does Paul in this morning’s reading from Romans. "Do you not know… (Christianity for Dummies) Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We have been buried with him… We have been united with him in a death like his…" Death. We have been united with Jesus in a death like his. A real, horrible death upon the cross. This is what Paul is talking about. We who are baptized share, participate in, Christ’s death. I am not at all opposed to infant baptism, or baptism by "sprinkling," but I remind you that the ultimate symbol of baptism will always be adult baptism by immersion. Total immersion. To disappear from the face of the earth, to plunge alone under the deep, dark water to a place where we cannot breath… to enter into death’s realm. "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death."

Death. Death is a huge issue for most of us. We spend a great amount of time and thought on death or avoiding death. Out of curiosity, I checked the index to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. (I suppose Bartlett’s is obsolete in this era of googling.) But the index in Bartlett’s of entries for death goes on page after page after page. I did not track those entries down, but I imagine I would have found reflections across the ages on death’s pain, its darkness, its inevitability and especially death’s finality. Death is the end. The end. Life, every life, is a journey that will end in death. Whether you deny it, fear it, or welcome it, all life leads towards death. This is our perspective.

But Paul says something completely different to the Romans. The journey that Christians are upon, he writes, is not a journey from life to death. It is a journey from death to life. The Christian journey is a journey from death to life. Death is the beginning. Life is the end. We are traveling from death to life.

And we’re on that journey now. Paul isn’t talking about the "after" life that awaits us after our mortal bodies die. He’s talking about our lives now. Our lives after baptism. He is very careful and deliberate in his use of verb tenses. "We who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death (past tense). Therefore we have been buried with him. We have died with Christ." Death is in the past. It is behind us. And we are now moving away from death into life.

Another way I’ve heard it expressed is to say that God’s work in our lives is to put in the past what belongs in the past and to put in the future what belongs in the future. Death belongs in the past. Life belongs in the future. God’s work through Christ’s death and resurrection make this journey possible for us. Christ has opened a road from death to life. Christ is also the way by which we make that journey.

The journey from death to life. The process of making past what ought to be past and making future what ought to be future. That is God’s hope for us in our lives. And by God’s grace and with God’s help it is a hope we may have for ourselves. Making past what ought to be past. Sin and the death it brings. Disobedience, ambition, hypocrisy, fear, selfishness, indifference. The journey from death to life puts sin in the past. And in the future of God’s forgiveness we find love, freedom, peace. This is the future we face.

Martin Luther found great strength and insight in his reading of Paul’s treatise to the Romans. Luther’s personal spiritual life was a tumultuous one. Especially early on in his days as an Augustinian monk still within the Roman Catholic Church he struggled and struggled with a sense of his own sinfulness and his own inability to overcome that sinfulness. No matter what he did, he never felt he could wipe away the sin that bound him. He could not put his sin behind him. And as long as his focus was upon himself and his own efforts to live a righteous life, he found no peace.

And then, partly through studying Romans, his perspective changed. His focus changed from what he could not do for himself, to what had already been done for him. "I am baptized" became his watchword. I am baptized. I AM baptized. We cannot do it for ourselves, but by God’s gift, sin is put in the past. We have been given new life in the future. To use another of Luther’s phrases, we are now able to become what we already are, forgiven, loved and free. Luther began each day with the proclamation, I am baptized.

According to Paul in Romans, our baptism inaugurates this journey from death to life. It’s almost as though in baptism we jump from one train on to another. From a train traveling towards death, onto a train traveling towards life. We move from a world where death and sin have ultimate power to a world where the Lord of Life has power over all. Those who are baptized will still sin, but sin’s power has been broken. Sin can no longer bind us. Even death’s power is a thing of the past.

God’s purpose is to make past what ought to be past and to make future what ought to be future. God yearns for us to put sin behind us and move towards life. But we must do out part. We must choose life. We must jump onto that new train, even if sometimes there are people or things on the old train that we care for very much. We must choose. A journey without Christ is a journey towards death. A journey with Christ is a journey from death to life. Even as we journey from death to life we will be faced by many choices. Again and again we will face choices between the sinful devices and desires of our own hearts or the alternative of following Christ. Let us choose life.

And when we don’t, when we inevitably sin, we must remember that all is not lost. Again and again and again and again God offers forgiveness. It is God’s forgiveness that enables us to put our sin behind us, to free ourselves from its deathly grip. If we confess our sins and turn to God for forgiveness, then our journey into life is renewed. If we confess our sins and turn to God for forgiveness. If we confess our sins, specifically, sincerely, frequently…

Become what you already are… forgiven, loved and free. The journey from death to life lies right here ahead of us. As Paul says, "You [may and you] must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ." Right now. Today. Dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.

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