Today’s Scripture

Psalm 119:41-46                     Zechariah 12:7-10

Galatians 3:23-29                   Luke 9:18-24

 

            July 4 is the day we remember the Revolutionary War, our nation’s fight for independence.  It is customary in many places for people to dress up in costumes of that time.  Not only do people dress as that, they try to reenact how people spoke, ate, and lived in many different ways.

 

            Although most of us do not dress up or act like our ancestors did, we benefit from the sacrifices they made, the battles they fought and won.  We live the freedoms they enjoyed and fought to win for us.  Today, we live in the very freedoms purchased by those who went before us.  Today, we proclaim the virtues of those freedoms amongst ourselves and to others throughout the world. 

 

            Paul writes to us about living in freedoms won by another.  This freedom is not one that can be won by an army, legislative act or presidential proclamation.  It is not a freedom that might be defended in a court system no matter how compassionate the judge is.  It is a freedom that overrides all of the rules, principalities, and jurisdictions of the world.  It is a freedom that one wears as a new suit of clothes, presenting him as a different person.  It is not a ceremonial costume as the Revolutionary War enactors wear, but a true transformation of the person.

 

            “…for all of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed in Christ.”  [v. 27]

 

            Baptism brings gifts received and held in faith.  Baptism brings something that you cannot do for yourself or another.  Baptism changes you so you are no longer what you were before, but now a new person completely opposite the first person.  Baptism gives you a freedom unlike any other freedom you have known or will ever know in this earthly life.  Baptism presents you as a new and different person, not the one you were before.  Baptism presents you with a new do, new clothes, a new you. 

 

            There is a practice among sheep raisers.  Sometimes a lamb will lose it’s own mother and will not be accepted by another sheep.  The sheepherders will skin a dead lamb and place that skin on the living lamb.  The orphaned lamb is now clothed with another lamb’s skin.  That dead lamb’s mother will accept the orphaned lamb, clothed in her own lamb’s skin, as her own.  One lamb’s death saves another lamb’s life.

 

            We cannot live lives without sin.  We cannot take away the spot and stain of sin from our records, no matter how hard we work to suppress those sins, hide them or correct them.  We are always a sinner.  When we get down to it we act like sin, think like sin, and look like sin in the presence of God.  There is no way he is going to let us into his presence looking, thinking, and acting in our sinful nature, our old Adam.

 

Jesus lived his life without sin.  Jesus obeyed his heavenly father perfectly in every way pleasing his father.  Jesus then took our sins upon himself and died in our place.  Jesus, in baptism, places his perfectness, his sinlessness upon you, presenting you the God the Father in his skin, in his robes of righteousness.  In baptism and in faith, God no longer sees the guilt of your sin, but sees the blood-bought righteousness of his son.  In this way he adopts you as his own dear child to inherit all that he has for you.

 

à        The work of Christ, not the works of men is what saves man.

à        Faith in Jesus’ work of righteousness, not one’s own righteousness is how men receive salvation.

à        In baptism, you receive this work of Christ as your own

à        Jesus suffered and was buried.

à        You too suffer and will be buried.

à        Jesus rose victorious and glorious from the grave.

à        In Christ you too will be raised in his victory and glory

 

Paul writes in Romans 6 that we were baptized in Jesus’ death, so that our sins will die with him.  We are also baptized into his resurrection so we too will live the new life he gives us.  In death in Christ you receive the benefits of his death, the acceptable price for your sin.  You also receive the glory given Christ in his resurrection and ascension where he is restored to the glory he had from the beginning, the glories of eternity in heaven.  [John]   When God adopts you as his children, you receive everything he gives his own dear son.  In faith, you are a child of Abraham, receiving all that God promised Abraham through his descendants.

 

The prophet Zechariah foretold that in that faith you receive the glories promised David and the new Jerusalem, a city of eternal peace.  In baptism you receive new life in water as it washes your sins and presents you with a cleanness previously unknown.  In baptism you receive new life in spirit, the Spirit of God working faith in you and the spirit to live in God’s love according to his commands.  In baptism you receive new life in eternity overcoming death and all that leads to death. 

 

Baptism is not just a consequence of faith, but also continues in actions of lives lived in faith.  Faith is trusting God in all things, including his good and perfect law for your comfort and joy.  Faith is publicly professing Christ as savior in witness for the benefit others to come to or remain in faith.  Baptism sends you in a new life living as Christ, putting aside the ways of the world around you and taking up your cross to confess the true faith and walk daily in witness of your faith to the world around you.  Taking up your cross is crucifying the old Adam and following Christ in your new self that is created in baptism.

 

You follow Christ, your redeemer and brother, just as a younger child follows the older sibling he wants to emulate.  Jesus has not only saved you, but by his example teaches you how to live in all situations and environments.  He leads you into lives that are no longer sinful, self-centered, prideful and selfish, but lives lived in the love of Christ, giving to others first.  It is like wearing his outfit and acting in his stead, saving the world through him and not condemning the world. because of him.

 

Wearing Christ is not acting, but is true living:

à        living in repentance

à        living in forgiveness

à        living forgiving others

à        living the joy of knowing salvation

à        living the love of Christ as we share that love with others

à        living the life of Christ, following God’s commands in all we think, say and do

à        living eternally, free from sin, death and the devil now and always.

 

It is like having a new do, new clothes, a new you, being clothed in Christ.              

 

Amen.