Creekside Church Sermon of June 5, 2005 "Wanted: Dead and Alive" Romans 6:1-11	Rev. David Bibbee
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Beginnings and ends. Ends and beginnings. Whether you call the link between them tension or paradox, the Christian sacrament of baptism uses the language of extremes to describe its purposes. The one being baptized is both washed in cleansing waters and drowned in the flood of God's fierce, redemptive love. If the record of baptisms were printed in the newspaper, where would you find it-in the birth announcements, the obituaries, or both?

To an outsider, the language of baptism can be confusing. A man who didn't have a lot on the ball stumbled upon a baptism service by a river. He walked to the riverbank and stood close to the minister who asked, "Mister, are you ready to find Jesus?" "Me?" he asked, "Yes, you!" The man thought a moment and said, "Well, I guess so…" The pastor dunked him under the water and pulled him right back up. "Have you found Jesus?" he asked the man. "No I didn't," he replied.

The pastor dunked him again, holding him under just a little longer. "Now, brother, have you found Jesus?" The man sputtered and said, "Noooo, I have not, Reverend." The pastor then grabbed him by the neck, shoved him under and held him there for thirty seconds. When the pastor pulled him out, he again asked, "Have you found Jesus yet?" Wiping his eyes and gasping for breath, he said, "Are you sure this is where he fell in?"

Baptismal language can be confusing, and rest assured that whenever baptism is discussed, questions about method will arise. Which is right, sprinkling or immersion? One time backwards or three times forward? The young son of a pastor watched his father conduct an immersion baptism. It made an impression upon him, so he decided to do it himself with the family cats. He filled the bathtub, and proceeded to baptize the felines. Two young ones were dunked without incident. The old tomcat, however, resisted the ancient rite. It howled and scratched and clawed the boy. It managed to get away, but the kid wrestled it into submission and tried again. The old cat fought as if it had none of its nine lives left. Many bites and scratches later, the cat had barely a sprinkle of water on it, so the kid dropped it on the floor and said in a disgusted tone, "Fine! Be a Mennonite if that's what you want!"

Next Sunday will be a banner day. Ground will be broken for the new church, and from the ground of faith, four new disciples will emerge. Katy, Becca, Samantha, and Tim will not be "JOINING" the church! The church isn't something you join. You can join Rotary or the Red Hat Society, but the church isn't a club of religiously minded people to be joined. We are "grafted" into the body of Christ like a branch is grafted on to a tree.

You didn't choose your parents. You were begat and chosen by them. A week from now, four youth will become disciples of Jesus, not just members of the church. When Katy, Becca, Sam, and Tim are baptized, their adoption will be finalized. They will become heirs to the promises of God. As it says in 1 John 3, "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and that is what we are." Christians know their children aren't their own. This is why we put them up for adoption. God has a place and a calling for them in his church. God says, "I'll take them."

Picture yourself walking along a lakeshore and coming upon people clustered at the water's edge. It is a baptism service. Never having seen one, you are clueless about what they are doing. Two people are in the water, one kneeling and one standing. With no explanation, the one kneeling is shoved underwater three times. You react by blurting out, "Hey! What do you think you're doing? Don't you know you could kill somebody doing that?" Then a woman in front of you turns and says, "That is EXACTLY what we're doing."

I didn't share this earlier because I didn't want to spook the youth, but now its time to level with them-"You're about to die!" If this sounds too harsh, how about, "You're going to drown in a flood!" Our text from Romans says, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death (Rom. 6:3)?

St. Paul spoke from experience. Before he dedicated his life to MAKING Christians, he was dedicated to ERADICATING them. Then on the road to Damascus, he was struck blind by a light that was intense beyond description. He heard a voice like thunder that asked, "Saul, why do you persecute me?" He figured he was good as dead. First, there was Saul, a strong, intelligent, influential, feared man, but changes were coming that could only be described as a shift from death to life. Saul was dead, and Paul was about to be born.

Baptism is not a graduation service. It is not a rite of passage like getting a driver's license, being old enough to vote, or being issued a credit card. Baptism isn't a way to make nice people nicer. We were created good, but by our own willfulness and sin, we are flawed and cannot fix ourselves. We INTEND to be better people, but we employ intricate defenses that block our intentions. Paul called it the influence of the "first Adam" within us, and nothing can free us shy of drowning him. Martin Luther said the first Adam is a very good swimmer who doesn't drown easily. It takes a flood to do it-the baptismal flood of God's fierce grace and love through Jesus.

Some of you remember my friend, Kermit. He's a recovering alcoholic. When Kermit talks about past experiences he sometimes adds a footnote… "That was in my former life." He doesn't see his life as an evolving process where he grew smarter as he grew older. He didn't stop drinking when it dawned on him, that he had made a mess of his life and the lives of the people he loved. He didn't grow out of it. There was no magic act-"Presto, chango! I'm a new person!" Ask him the difference between the life he lived and the one he lives today and he'll give a simple answer. The old Kermit died. He calls his new life a miracle…the miracle of resurrection.

Someone put it this way: "God does not choose us for development, but for conversion." Becoming a Christian isn't simply a matter of believing the right things. Right beliefs are important, but what you believe can no more make a Christian of you than sleeping in a garage will turn you into a car!

You may have seen the commercial for the Visa check card that guards the holder against fraud. All of the Marvel comic book superheroes arrive to help a woman in distress, but just as they are about to rescue her they discover that he has the Visa check card. They are dejected and walk away as we are told that no super heroes can rescues us, but the Visa check card can.

Heroes are not necessary. Years ago Tina Turner sang a song that said, "We don't need another hero…" Sometimes we talk about people who make heroic efforts to accomplish something. Their stories inspire us, but heroism doesn't help when it comes to trying to make ourselves perfect and holy, or avoiding sin, or trying to make ourselves acceptable to God, or trying to keep the church going by our own smarts and tireless efforts. Heroes have to dig deep inside for the strength to do what must be done. But the baptized know they cannot hold it all together by themselves. The baptized let go of themselves. Heroes don't need help… not from God and especially not from other people. The hero within us needs a funeral.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes: Someone says, "How are you?" You decide to tell the truth. "I'm going crazy. My life is a mess. I hate losing control like this." Then, if she is a good friend, she laughs at you. "You don't hate losing control," she says, "you hat losing the illusion that you ever were in control." And she is right, but you will forget, because like almost everyone else in the world, you have been fooled into thinking that the struggle to control is what life is all about.

Four of our own will be buried with Jesus. Buried with them will be the idea that they control their lives, and they alone are heroes who will prevail over their enemies. After their baptism they will do what all of us have done after our baptism… they will sin. But the power of sin won't have a strangle hold on them, because that part of them will die. Together, we have passed with Jesus to the other side. As Colossians 3: 3 puts it, "For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

Paul said:

All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried with him so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Katy, Becca, Sam, and Tim are wanted dead and alive. They are wanted dead to themselves and alive to what God calls them to be. In college, I spent three months in Bogotá, Colombia. The east-west streets were called carreras. I learned that the Latin word for carrera is "racetrack." When trying to walk across four lane streets, they certainly felt like racetracks. I also learned that carrera is the same word from which "car" and "career" comes.

A professor observed that cars and careers get us racing competitively in circles. He observed that the car is an "automobile," a vehicle that is self-driven. You don't have to take others with you. It's a self-contained vehicle in which you can drive alone to your desired destination. But the word "calling" comes from the Latin word that also means "vocation." Our calling, or vocation, is given by God and is used to serve God's purposes and to build others up. A career takes smarts and gets you to where you're going. A calling also takes smarts in that it asks whether the place you are going is worth going to.

It's hard to think of anything more life-giving than the knowledge that you are doing what God has made you to do. Baptism is the means by which the true you gets to live. As we stress in LifeKeys, nothing makes us more alive than discovering our God-given gifts and applying them to the needs of others.

Let me tell you about Jeannie. It was clear the first time I visited Jeannie and her husband back in 1984 that she did want to be visited. It became clear that my space was more valuable than my presence. Jeannie and her husband would come to church now and then, and couldn't wait to get out the door. Then life grew hard on her. The new family business was having a hard time getting off the ground. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died within a year.

I offered discipleship classes for those considering baptism. I was surprised when Jeannie showed up. She was struggling and searching. She had gone as far as she could on her own strength and savvy, and realized she couldn't keep going in circles on the racetrack any more. At the end of the classes, Jeannie decided she wanted to be baptized. She was ready to die… and live. It's been amazing to watch her grow. By the time I moved to Elkhart, she was already one of the spiritual leaders of the church.

Baptism will not give Katy, Becca, Sam, and Tim the answer to questions about where to go to college, or what group to associate with, what they should do for a living, or even what they should do in situations where right and wrong are not clear. What it will tell them is that they can't answer the questions alone. They will understand that the answers will not be found by swallowing the world's version of reality. But after they are buried and raised, they will have a new framework, or, as someone said:

Baptism thrusts us down and pulls us forth, naked, clean, fresh, and sticky as a newborn; shocked, with eyes open, dripping wet, and then put all the questions to us again-this time as those who have been buried and raised with Christ.

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