Being
a pastor I’m supposed to know stuff about the Bible and God and Jesus.
But just a few minutes ago I read the comments of Rowan Williams,
retired Archbishop of Canterbury in England, about what baptism means.
And I just now “got” something I had never “gotten”
before. He wrote that when
we are baptized we identify with two things.
I had to look up the word “identify” in the dictionary and in
my thesaurus because I’m not sure I ever really knew what “identify
with” means. I
notice that another way to say “identify” can be “to put myself in
the shoes of another person”
Williams
said that when we are baptized we go into the water.
In the Bible water, sea in particular, is often identified with
chaos like we see in Genesis 1:2.
Waters, seas, are often dangerous places symbolizing evil and
darkness and sin. So
when I am baptized I enter into, identify with, recognize, see the
danger of the sinfulness and chaos,
not only of the world but also of myself.
I see not only my sin but also the depths of it (of course infant
baptism means a baby has to grow up to understand any of this.
After all I’m just “getting it” now).
Our
second identification is with Christ.
We “put ourselves in the shoes of Christ”.
He, God, God’s Son, entered the chaos, sin, injustice,
violence, brokenness, and horrors of this world to heal it.
When we put ourselves in his shoes (yes as forgiven, rescued,
“saved”, new creations) then the whole purpose of the Christian Life
comes into focus, at least it does for me.
I, like Jesus, have the calling to spend my life entering into
the world’s chaos and sin and injustice
by the transforming power of Christ at work through me (even
though I don’t feel very transforming, the Bible says that believers
are indeed exactly that) in
order to heal it!
That’s
what it means to live out my baptism!
Baptism tells me that I have been recreated into the image of
Christ (already but obviously not yet) but that I don’t stop with that
and just go on with life as usual.
Instead I “go”. I
go as an ambassador for Jesus Christ, willing to enter whatever nook or
cranny of this world’s need that Jesus leads me to.
I
seems to me that this understanding of baptism is all I need to know
about why I wake up every morning, why I go to work, what my purpose is
when I get home from work, what my existence on earth is all about
anyway. Further it
seems to me that this means that there is no work on earth, no place on
earth, no person on earth, that does not have intrinsic to it the
deepest meaning ever possible for anyone.
”We
were therefore buried with him 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
Romans 6:4
For
more:
follow on Twitter @jefflampl
No comments:
Post a Comment