Sermon

Sermon # 1033
March 20, 2011
1 Peter 3:18-22
Dr. Ed Pettus

“The New Reality in Our Baptism”

Lent is perhaps the most difficult of church seasons. Granted, there is no shopping to do, no gifts to purchase, no decorations, no cards, no family gatherings like Christmas brings, no big meals to prepare, so in one respect maybe it is not too hard on us. But Lent is difficult for those who take seriously the disciplines of self-reflection, self-examination, repentance and humility. No one gets festive about that!

When we are called to look at our selves, to reflect on our lives, we fear what we might see. It is easier to continue our self-deception than to engage in self-examination. But Lent calls us to examination. This is the message of Lent: “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing” ~ Joel 2:12-13.

We return to God through examination, fasting, weeping, and mourning – because we see our sinfulness. Our hearts break. But what we come to realize more deeply is the power of God to forgive our sin and to cleanse us of that sin. It is the same power that we know through our baptism. In our baptism we have experienced the forgiveness of sin, the washing away of all that would break our hearts, and the new life and new reality we have in Christ.

The scripture readings for today relate to baptism. The Old Testament reading reminds us of the saving of Noah and those with him, through the waters of the flood. Noah and his family were saved through the waters just as the waters of baptism symbolized our salvation. The Epistle lesson, 1 Peter 3, is something of an odd passage, parts of which we are not sure how to interpret. The overall context of the passage deals with unjust suffering.

Verses 18-22 use Jesus Christ as an example of one who suffered. The passage links the sufferings of Christians to the suffering of Christ through our baptism. In our baptism we share in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. We are also, in our baptism, linked to Noah and the flood, in the gospels, to Jesus in the Jordan, and to Christians everywhere who suffer – because we have all passed through the waters.

Peter, I imagine, intended to comfort the suffering Christians of his day with these words that connect believers to Jesus. We are unfamiliar with the suffering they endured, with persecution and the threat of death. But what if we took this passage as a comfort in the discomfort of Lent, the discomfort of examining our hearts and having sin rear its ugly head? That may entail more suffering for some, but we won’t name names! This passage helps us participate in Lenten disciplines in two ways:

1. It reminds us that our hope lies in remembering the suffering servant, Jesus Christ,

2. It reminds us that in our baptism, we may know the will of God.

Let us look first at the suffering servant. Jesus died on the cross because of our sin. It was not his fault! Not his crime! Instead, Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5.6). While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5.8)! But it does not end there! Secondly, Jesus is made alive in the spirit. That is, he is raised from the dead. Then, Peter says Jesus journeyed to the prisoners to preach, apparently to those who did not pay much attention to Noah when he gave warning that a flood was coming! This is the part of the text that scholars debate.

Peter draws a comparison between Jesus and Noah, between the past salvation of Noah and the present salvation in Christ. The link is with us, in our baptism. The analogy here is not just a comparison of water, the waters of the flood and the waters of baptism, it is seeing the comparison of salvation for Noah and his family and the salvation of Christians symbolized through baptism. The passage accentuates how baptism moves us from one reality into another.

Noah’s family moved from one world, stained with sin, to a new world that afforded Noah and his family a new beginning for humanity – from an old tired reality to a fresh new reality. Noah floated through the waters to a new life. So too do we move in our baptism from one world into another, from the sin filled world into a new creation given through the resurrection power of God. As one commentator says:
“Entering this new world through baptism alters the believer, for it applies the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection to us, which results in spiritual transformation. In other words, we see the world differently in baptism – with a clear conscience or to use a biblical metaphor, we regard the world with a transformed mind – because we have, in fact, entered a different world of which the church is the first emerging sign” (24, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary).


Lent is a time to recognize that in our baptism we have entered into a new world and the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection result in our spiritual transformation. That is the good news of Lent, when we see the bad news of our sin we know that in our baptism we are washed clean. Lent, while it is a time to reflect on our lives and repent, is a time to also reflect on the reality of our baptism. Lent is a time to decide if we truly believe what our baptism means for us.

If you have seen the movie “The Matrix”, it is something of a science fiction thriller where the main character, Neo, begins to see that there are two realities in his reality. Neo is eventually faced with a decision. Is the reality he has known from birth his true reality or is it another reality he has just discovered? He must decide between "false reality" and "true reality." When he makes that decision, he is transformed and brought into a new community, a new reality.

The season of Lent may become a time for each of us to decide what reality is false and what reality is true. We certainly have options – the way of the world or the way of the kingdom, the way of death or the way of life. Our baptism calls us throughout our lives to make a decision. Do we believe the kingdom of God is at hand? Do we believe the kingdom of this world is our true reality?
In our baptism we are called to choose between life and death, between the ways of the world and the ways of God’s kingdom. In our baptism we celebrate a covenant faith. The covenant and the faith are gifts from God. The salvation we come to know through our baptism is not our own work, but the work of God in Jesus Christ. That is why Peter says that our baptism saves us “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” God brings us through the waters, just as God brought Noah through the waters. It is the will of God for us to know this salvation in Jesus Christ.
The power in our baptism is God’s power at work to bring us to understand the reality of Christ’s suffering for sins once and for all.

The power of our baptism is God’s power at work to show us the reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection fleshed out in our dying and being raised to new life in Him.

The power of our baptism is God’s power at work to help us examine our lives and our hearts so that we may return to God “with all our heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; tear our hearts and not our clothing. Return to the Lord, our God.”

The power of our baptism is God’s power at work to reveal the good news revealed trough the prophet Joel, “for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”

The power in our baptism is God’s power at work to reveal that the kingdoms of this world, the ones we can see, are false realities. God’s kingdom is the only true reality.

The power in our baptism is coming alive to us throughout our lives.

Baptism is not revealed only once at the actual moment of baptism, but our baptism constantly calls us back to God to reveal its meaning for our lives. Whether we are baptized as infants or adults does not matter because what we know at the time is not the criteria for an effective baptism. What matters in our baptism is God’s power! Our baptism calls us to realize whose we are, like Woody in the movie “Toy Story”. Woody is a toy that belongs to Andy, a young boy with a room full of toys. Woody is always able to look on the bottom of his boot and see the name “Andy”. He knows to whom he belongs. We too have a name marked through our baptism that tells us to whom we belong. And the constant call in our lives, in Lent and any season is a call to discover and rediscover the meaning of our baptism.


We never stop learning about and growing into our baptism. I remember a conversation with someone who was baptized early in life and had just realized, in a significant way at age 40, what that baptism meant. It does not matter if we are baptized as infants or adults – we are always learning the significance of this sacrament.


During Lent, we are called to reflect on our sinful lives and to repent. We are also called to remember that we are a baptized people, forgiven, washed, being exposed to a new reality, the true reality in the kingdom of God. Let us open ourselves wherever we are in our journey, during this Lenten season, that we may see the power of God at work in us through our baptism and that we may see the new reality in Christ. Amen.