An Old Cartoon Image

We are covering Baptism in my Sunday morning Bible study. In the discussion I brought up the old cartoon image of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. It seems that little cartoon image is, in reality, how many Christians (even Lutherans) see themselves. They are in the middle between good and evil. Sometimes they make evil choices and sometimes they make good choices -- but the evil is outside of them just as the good is. It is the ultimate statement of free will, I guess. I am neutral and only my choices are good and evil.

It seems that somewhere along the way our talk of original sin did not compute with the world view and individual perspectives of these Christians. Somewhere along the way original sin was made responsible for death but not for the condition that has passed upon all humanity. It is as if sin's mark is only to make the evil choice possible to us and, perhaps, to make us susceptible to that evil choice, weak in the face of temptation. Again, the key here is that the evil resides outside me, sins are actions (okay, thoughts and words, too) but they are distinct from the me who stands in the middle -- good on the right of me and evil on the left. At least that is the desired illusion of how we are, the lie that the devil whispers in our ears at every chance and his great deception that masks how things really are.

If you hold some version of the above, then baptism is not all that important to you. Yes we have all the talk about new birth and new life but it really comes down to forgiveness. As one person said to me, "How many different ways do you need to get forgiveness from in order to be forgiven?"

Then we began talking about Romans 6 and 2 Corinthians 5:17 and 1 Peter 1. It was clear to me that we have not mined very deeply into baptism's vein. We have been crucified with/in Christ so that we died with Him... We have been raised with/in Christ so that we live in Him... Not the old life we had before baptism but the new life that flows from baptism... Where we were born again (anew)... We are not who we were, we are new... The new we are is not simply a cleansed or forgiven version of our old self... The old has died. Period. It is no more. The new one we are is the person we are in Christ... This new person takes no credit (It is not me but Christ living in me...)... Well, you know how this heading...

Anyway, the more we talked the more light bulbs I saw going on. No, it is not as if they had never heard it before but it is the kind of thing that does not stay while the image of the man in the middle with good and evil on either side is so ingrained in us and our culture that it is hard to overcome.

So much of Paul only makes sense when you read it through the lens of baptism. So many of his directives for Christian living, his blunt words on the nature of our life in Christ, they seem like a new law or requirement which must be kept... unless you read them through what he also says about baptism...

Anyway the discussion we had and are continuing, well, it reminds me that the basics are never taught and then we move one. Christian teaching is cyclical -- we circle around and circle back to those basics (the six chief parts) and it is clear that it had been too long since we had so deliberately talked about baptism... Something I should have realized a lot sooner than I did...

Well, Sunday is the Baptism of our Lord... and it will be on our minds in more ways than one... I for one am particularly touched by watching the people of my congregation walk past the filled font and touch their fingers into its water and make the sign of the cross. Especially poignant is when you see a parent hold up the child so that the child can reach to touch the water and then the parent guides the child's hand to make the sign of the cross... That is the end of the preparatory rite in which we recall what God did in baptism to mark us with the sign of the cross, to put us to death with Christ that we might rise in Christ the new people of His calling... all made possible when the pure one entered into baptism to become dirty that the dirty might be washed clean and wear His purity and righteousness...

As I sit looking out my office window this morning, I see the snow gently falling (ugh, there will be panic later today and all the schools are surely closed)... And I am reminded how this blanket of white cleanses and makes new what is dirty underneath... Some folks might think Thomas Kinkade or Norman Rockwell... And I think immediately: BAPTISM!!