Something Has to Rise
What Happens When You Rise?
In baptism something has to die. Baptism is a burial. It is a watery grave. It’s not magic. It’s sacred, spiritual, and it is real what happens in this ancient spiritual practice.
But if baptism is a burial, if something has to die and be buried, then something has to Rise!
What happens when you rise out of the waters of baptism?
Now that we’re getting into Spring, it seems like I see more and more people outside working in their yards. People plant flowers in their flower beds and things like that.
These days, if you want to spruce up your curb appeal, you go to a local nursery and you buy the plants you want and you plant them. Technically, you’re transplanting them because they’ve already been planted, they’ve already started growing, you’re just moving them from one location to another. Someone else took the seed, planted it, watered it, and helped it grow.
They say that in order for a plant to grow, the seed has to die. And it’s interesting to think about. You take a seed, you plant it… you literally bury it in the ground, a sort of grave, and then after some time, you see something rise up from the ground, rise up from that grave where you buried the seed. You see new life sprout up, rise up.
Something had to die, then… something begins to rise.
We Don’t Like Death
Generally speaking, we don’t like death.
I came downstairs the other day at our house to discover my girls had been crying. They had been watching some movie on Netflix and they thought it was going to be a sweet, romantic comedy. Turns out… the dad in the story got sick and ended up dying and now they’re crying! They’ve never met this person because he wasn’t real. It was only a story. A fictional story!
We don’t like death. We don’t like to think about death. We don’t want anything or anyone to die. We certainly don’t want to put anything to death… not even the things that are killing us.
But… There are things that are killing us that we need to put to death. Things that we need to separate ourselves from, detach from, let go of.
There are some things that need to die so that something new can rise.
Like when a seed is buried in the ground never to be seen again, but because it was buried, because it was allowed to die, something new rose up from the ground that is beautiful, thriving, flourishing, healthy, vibrant, and strong!
There are things in our lives that need to die. There are habits that are killing us, attitudes that are hurting us, sins that are destroying our lives and the lives of others around us. We keep trying on our own to do better, we tell ourselves that we have to try harder, we might even feel like we’ve conquered it, whatever it is for us, for a day, a week, or a season.
But the truth is we can’t do it on our own. The problem, and this is THE PROBLEM, is not that we’re bad and we need to be better. The problem is that something has to die so that something new can rise and we don’t like death. And we don’t like to put to death the things that are killing us.
But, if something doesn’t die then nothing new can rise.
And this is the reality that God has invited us into. It’s a choice we have to make. A choice you have to make.
Baptism Changes Everything
Romans is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the Christians living in ancient Rome. He is trying to help them understand the same thing we’re trying to understand today. What is the baptized life and what is it all about?
Paul begins with these famous words…
1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
I don’t know if you noticed this, but Paul isn’t trying to convince anyone to be baptized. In fact, as far as I know, Paul never tried to convince anyone to be baptized. Paul assumes that if you’re a Christian, you’ve already been baptized. So he never argues FOR baptism, he always argues FROM baptism.
He assumes our baptism is our common history and common experience FROM which life in Christ flows.
So for Paul… Because you’ve been baptized, you cannot continue in sin. Something has happened that makes that impossible. Christ has died and in your baptism, you joined him in that death. Literally, you were fused together with Christ in your baptism.
So when Jesus died to sin on that cross, you died to sin. Something happened in the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus that changed everything forever. Something happened when you joined Christ in baptism that changed everything forever.
What changed? You changed!!! You died to sin.
Some of you may be thinking, I believe that’s true. At least, I want to believe that’s true. But I also know that I still struggle daily with sin! So what do I do with that?
There’s a lot to be said about that, but don’t miss that last line of verse 4. Paul says….
And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
In other words, your baptism was a turning point. You were headed in one direction, now you’re headed in a whole different direction. You were living life one way, now you’re living life practicing the Way, following the Way, of Jesus.
That doesn’t mean you’ll never struggle with sin again, or that you’ll be perfect from this day forward. What that means is that you have made a decision to follow Jesus. To live your life in a different direction. There is a difference between sinning and living a life of sin. We all sin. We all fall short of the glory of God. Some of us, if not all of us, did that before we got to church today! We said something, thought something, did something that was not loving towards God or towards others. But that’s not the direction of your life. The baptized life is the life lived following in the Way of Jesus. That’s the new life Paul is reminding us about.
Reading Romans 6 in Reverse
OK… Now I want to do something that may seem strange, but I want to read the rest of this chapter in reverse because I want you to see how Paul talked about the life we live because of our baptism into Christ.
Jump down to verses 12-14. Paul writes…
12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
There it is again. You’re not called to live a life of perfection. You’re no longer a slave to sin. No, you’ve been invited to live life under the freedom of God’s grace. To live your life in a new direction. You can do that because of what Paul says has already happened in your baptism:
PAST EVENT: …for you were dead, but now you have new life.
Sometimes we fall into this trap of thinking that the new life, the eternal life, we receive in and through our baptism happens ONLY in the future, ONLY after we die and our time on earth is done. But Paul points to a new reality we’ve already talked about in this series, that this has happened… You have been brought from death to life. You were dead, but now you have new life.
This isn’t something you’re waiting on, it’s something that has already happened in and through your baptism.
Then you back up to verses 9-11 and you find out…
9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
PRESENT REALITY: …consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
This isn’t something you’re waiting on, if you’ve been baptized this is your present reality. You are right now, present day, alive to God through Christ Jesus. You have the Spirit of the Living God living within you! Something has happened that changes everything! Something had to die. And now, something new has risen within you. You are alive to God!
And then, Paul says this in verses 5-8:
5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.
Because of our baptism, YES… there is a future hope. We are already experiencing the Abundant Life, the Good Life, the Eternal life… because of our baptism we get to experience the God-With-Us life in the here and now. But one day, we will experience this God-With_Us life in an even fuller way. Paul says, this is our future hope.
FUTURE HOPE: …since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.
For the Apostle Paul, your baptism wasn’t just a ceremony, a ritual, it wasn’t symbolic. No! It was an event where something happened. An event in which God is alive and active. It’s the place where God does something only God can do. In your baptism you are unified with Christ so that you experience death and resurrection. Not resuscitation.
Jesus wasn’t brought back to life after he died like Lazarus. When Jesus raised his friend Lazarus, he was brought back to his old life. Lazarus died again. That’s not what happened with Jesus. When he came up out of that grave He was raised to NEW LIFE! And in your baptism you, too, are raised to NEW LIFE! This is resurrection we’re talking about. Not resuscitation!
Because of that, because of your baptism, you now have a present hope AND a future hope. You have eternal life in the here and now and one day, you will live with Christ forever!
Like the seed that dies and then, up from the ground rises a new shoot, when you die to yourself in baptism, something new rises from that watery grave. It’s a turning point. An event where everything changes forever.
Turning Point Moments
So what happens when you come to a turning point in your life?
Have you ever been there? There are lots of turning point moments in our lives.
Going to college. Graduation. That first job. Getting married. Having a child. Having a grandchild.
Sometimes those turning points are positive. Sometimes they are hard. But something happened in that turning point moment that changed everything for you.
Some 2000 years ago there was a turning point in human history that changed everything forever.
On Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey. We call today Palm Sunday because on this Sunday 2000 years ago, the people of Israel cried out,
“Praise God!”
Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD!
Hail the King of Israel!”
John 12.13
And as they did they laid down palm branches before Him. They thought Jesus was coming to Jerusalem to set up His Kingdom. To restore Israel as a sovereign nation. They thought the time had come.
Then came Friday. Everyone thought the story was over on Friday when the one they called the King of the Jews bled and died on a criminal’s cross. His disciples abandoned Him. His people mocked Him. The Romans, they were the ones who carried out His crucifixion.
The Romans had been sent from Rome to Jerusalem to rule and oppress the people. The Roman soldiers drove the nails into the hands and feet of Jesus like they had done a hundred times before to men condemned to die. But they soon realized this man was no common criminal. And this crucifixion was not like anything they had ever been a part of before.
The sky turned black about noon and stayed that way until 3pm. It wasn’t just dark, it was can’t see your hand in front of your face dark. A Roman centurion standing near the cross heard Jesus shout, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And after he spoke those words, the Roman centurion watched as he breathed his last breath. (Luke 23.44-49)
At that moment, the ground began to shake, rocks split apart, people who had been dead for a long time were somehow raised from the dead. The curtain in the Temple that separates people from the Most Holy Place was torn in two from top to bottom. When the Roman centurion saw all that had happened that day, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27.45-56)
We don’t know how the church in Rome started, and I’m not saying this is what happened, but I will say that I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those Romans soldiers didn’t have a hand in telling the people back home… something happened in Jerusalem that has changed the world forever.
Because three days later, on Sunday morning after the darkest Friday the world has ever known, the Roman soldiers who were guarding the tomb where Jesus was buried saw an angel of the Lord. They were so afraid they fainted and fell to the ground. When they woke up, the stone had been rolled away and Christ had risen from the grave! (Matthew 28.4)
Something had to die! SomeONE had to die! His name is Jesus.
And then something had to rise! SomeONE had to rise! His name is Jesus!
This the Good News today and everyday!
Christ is Risen! Your sins are forgiven!
When you come up out of those waters of baptism, you rise with Christ! Your sins are forgiven and you are invited to live NEW LIFE!
Something has to rise! The Spirit of the Living God rises within you. The fruit of God’s Spirit rises within you!
As we prepare our hearts this week for Easter Sunday, for Baptism Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, can I ask you to think about…
What needs to die in you so that Christ can live in you?
What do you need to let go of so you can take hold of Christ?
What happens when we rise out of the waters of baptism?
We rise to new life. We rise to live the baptized life! We rise to live life in a different direction. We get to experience the God-With-Us life!
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