9-2-2023

Good Morning All,

    Romans 6:4; “When we were baptized into his death, we were placed into the tomb with him. As Christ was brought back from death to life by the glorious power of the Father, so we, too, should live a new kind of life”.

    I would like you to think for a moment about Jesus at the time of his crucifixion on Good Friday.  It is really a gruesome event.  Remember all the things that he had experienced since Thursday night.  He was beaten with a rod.  He would have had his beard plucked out.  He was slapped repeatedly and often.  He was scourged.  This was a process by which he was whipped with a whip that would have had thirteen lashes which would have been embedded with either pieces of bone or metal in the end to insure the maximum amount of skin slicing effect.  He had a crown of thorns forced upon his head.  He was crucified with nails driven through his hands and feet.  Lastly, he was stabbed in the side with a spear.

    As his body was taken down from the cross, it would have been a very broken body.  It was bloodied and beaten to a point of almost non-recognition.  So, as he was hurriedly laid into the tomb, he was a very broken body.

     Now think of how he looked three days later on Easter Sunday.  He had his glorified body and was not recognized by his own mother.  He was restored.  The scourging marks were gone.  The thorn imprints were gone.  He chose to keep the marks in his hands, feet, and side to show the proof of the wounds.  He went into the tomb broken and emerged whole.

    There is one more element to remember; as Jesus entered the tomb, the sins of the world went with him.  As he emerged from the tomb, those sins were left there.  This is what Paul is speaking about in our verse.  When we are baptized, our broken, sin-filled bodies are, in effect, placed in the tomb with Jesus.  Then, just like Jesus emerged from the tomb glorified, we come through the tomb, through Baptism, new creations. This is how and why we value Baptism as a great gift from God.  It makes us new.  It washes away our sins and makes us marked as children of God.  We are now redeemed children of God.  We are loved by God now and forever.  The sins are left in the tomb, and we are brought out as new creations filled with Jesus’ righteousness as our own righteousness.  Our old sinful self no longer controls us.  The devil will try to get you to live in the tomb surrounded by all those sins, but we don’t have to.  We are redeemed and forever loved. What an amazing, gracious gift!

Dearest Father, through your wondrous love we emerge from the tomb forgiven by the blood of Jesus.  We come through Baptism as new creations, as your dear child.  Keep us strong in this knowledge.  Reach out to those who struggle with life and sometimes do not see the new creation but feel they remain in the tomb. Restore them, Father, bring them comfort, bring them peace.  Give us hope.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret