Baptism-The Gift of Death and Life

Midweek 4 – 2026                                                                                         LSB #’s 590, 594, 597
Text – Romans 6:4
 
We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
 
Baptism – the Gift of Death & Life
 
 
“I wish I were dead,” people say.   When a teenager says it after being embarrassed in front of someone special  that’s one thing.   However, many Americans say it  in reaction to situations  that are more than embarrassing.  Some of those we create, & others  created for us,  make the very taste of life go sour,   bitter,   intolerable.  
Have you had one of those days  that grind down your hopes  & shatter your dreams?  Things we do  can get us in a mess that seems to have no way out.  Actions of others close doors we hoped  would lead to our future.  Our mistakes & failures, our bad judgment,  or risks we take – cutting against God’s grain – make our identities repulsive,  disgusting,  vile,  detestable.  
Very easily the love we have for ourselves  can turn to hate.  We want to jump out of our skin, & there are no other skins into which we would fit.  “I wish I were dead” is a judgment we at times pronounce upon ourselves.  It can seem like the most reasonable future  because we’ve so fouled up our own lives  that no other options  appear to be left.   
To the person coming to us with the confession, “I wish I were dead,” we can say, “Do I have a deal for you.”   To those battered & broken by falling off God’s path,  we bring the offer of having their sinful, battered brokenness, & their old identities, laid to rest in Christ’s tomb.  In exchange  God gives a brand-new life in baptism, a rebirth of “putting on Christ.”  
Through baptism, we look like Jesus in the sight of our heavenly Father.   The church created the Lenten season to help Christians focus on the sufferings of our Lord  at a time when there was more suffering in the world than many North Americans experience today.  Yet, the focus on Lent sometimes led believers to concentrate on their own sufferings or to concentrate on what Jesus had to go through on our behalf.   The Gospels do not pull punches  when it comes to making clear that Jesus suffered much  for us.   Yet, when Paul talks about our salvation,  he does not try to measure the drops of blood Christ shed  to make up for our sins.  
There is no making up  for our sins.  “The wages of sin is death.”  (Romans 6:23a ESV)  And sin is an honest paymaster.   It pays promptly  & it pays in full.  All sinners have to die, so Christ was handed over for our sins.  (Romans 4:25)   But there’s another half to Romans 6:23 & 4:25.  God is a more than generous giver,  & He dishes out eternal life.  
The Messiah, who suffered death because our sins had earned us death,   rose from the grave to restore righteousness to you.  He gives eternal life by coming back to life to justify us, to bring us once again to the kind of life God made for us to live in Eden.  He brings us back to our humanity,  as God created it in the first place,  by breathing into the dust  the gift of life. 
Between Romans 4:25 & Romans 6:23 is the Epistle reading.  In that, Paul is straightforward.  He knew that after all the talk of God’s grace in the previous  three chapters, it was certain that our sinful nature would ask  if we might not sin more so as to get more grace.  If God enjoys forgiving sinners,  why not oblige Him  & let Him practice a few more times?  
Paul says unequivocally, “No.”  We may be tempted to add, “That’s the path to hell,” as we try  to scare people into behaving.  However,  Jesus came not to scare us  but to love us  into behaving.  Paul points out that the sinful person we were has been grabbed by the Spirit’s Word of death & new life.  That happened in our baptism, when the Word of God made us new. 
The person you were before baptism  has been buried.  He or she is out of God’s sight.  Christ’s tomb is the only place in His universe that the heavenly Father does not peer into.  You are not just dead.  You are gone.  Charlie the sinner, Linda the rebellious child – God has forgotten.  He died for your sins & for your sinfulness.  Jesus claimed them.  He grabbed them from you saying, “All mine!” & ran off  into His tomb via the cross – the cross on which He suffered the agonies of eternal death.  If you aren’t sure if something is a sin or not, regard it as one.  Then it belongs to Christ – removed from your conscience  & placed into His tomb.  
And don’t you  let the devil  try to fish it out again.  He wants to use it to lure you back.  He might say, “Hey, you’re forgiven anyway.  That sin wasn’t all that bad,  & you really are a sinner anyway.  As long as you have forgiveness,  play life’s game  my way.”  
Or he might say, “Remember that sin.  It shows the real you – your true identity.  Come on.  You’re part of my family,  & there is nothing you can do about it.  Welcome back to my club.”  Jesus says, as Paul did in Romans 6:1, “No.”  It’s not that way.  Those whom the Holy Spirit has drowned with baptismal water are dead as sinners.   They’ve been  transformed.  
They – that is us, you know – we  have been raised with Christ.  We are new creatures (2 Cor 5:17), re-created by the paraphrase of “let there be.”  The paraphrase sounds like this, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, & of the Son & of the Holy Spirit.”   We are new creatures having been raised  to restore us to our true  humanity. 
As Luther said in applying Romans 6 to our daily lives, you are raised with Christ to walk in His footsteps.  The mystery of sin & evil continuing in the lives of the baptized  cannot be solved.  There’s no answer to that profoundly puzzling & bewildering question,  that deeply disturbing & disquieting dilemma, of our falling back into the same old sins.  
Yet,  the call to repentance, to be turned away from every false hope,  every plan we want to lean upon,  & the renewal of the gift of life as God’s child  make every day  a new dawn of our new identity.  God will not alter our DNA as a member of His family.  He remains faithful to His promise.  He is stubborn in His determination to be your Father & to send out the good shepherd to search for His prodigals.  That means the identity that determines & shapes the way you live today, this week, the rest of your life,  is the identity that came out of Christ’s tomb, that emerged from your baptismal water.  Our saintly nature  is the identity of one who knows that true peace & joy  come from walking in the footsteps of Jesus.  
Our saintly nature yearns to express itself in putting to death every desire to forge life on our own terms, on the world’s terms, on Satan’s terms.  Our baptismal identity enjoys being a child  in the family of the almighty God. 
Yes,  the Lord’s way of doing things involves suffering & death, but they are temporary for all who follow Jesus as Lord & Savior.  In spite our suffering here,  the resurrection dawn of Easter continues to light up our lives.  The coming resurrection dawn of Easter allows us to relax in the trust that the Creator of life came to restore us through His own death  & resurrection. 
Have you ever wished you were dead?   It’s too late!   You already are.   Christ has tucked your sinful identity away  in His tomb.   The real you, reborn through baptismal death & resurrection, is here as God’s child,   stumbling,  but stumbling forward  in the footsteps of the dead & risen One.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen. 
 
 
 
God’s own child,  I gladly say it:  I am baptized into Christ!   He, because I could not pay it,  gave my full redemption price.  Do I need earth’s treasures many?   I have one worth more than any  that brought me salvation free  lasting to eternity!   There is nothing worth comparing  to this life-long comfort sure!   Open-eyed  my grave is staring:  even there I’ll sleep secure.  Though my flesh awaits its raising,  still my soul continues praising:  I am baptized into Christ;  I’m a child  of paradise!  Amen.  LSB 594:1, 5.