March 13, 2005 Sermon

Paul’s European Tour
Acts 16:6-15

Today our worship service moves from baptism to communion. In so doing we follow the path Jesus took. He started his public ministry with baptism in the Jordan River . Near the end of his ministry he sat down with his closest followers to share what we call his Last Supper. This path from a kind of birth to the night before death might seem like a long slide into nothingness. But both sacraments symbolize hope coming out from despair. Both sacraments remind us that God creates life from death.

Take your walk with Jesus. Take life from death.

Baptism dramatizes how God snatches life from death. Take Jesus’ own baptism. He walked down from Jerusalem to the banks of the Jordan River . We do not know the precise spot where John the Baptist did his work, but it had to be near the Dead Sea , the lowest spot on the face of the earth. Jesus managed to go still lower. He walked out into the stream and permitted John to dip him underwater. Bodily.

Do not miss the element of fear present in baptism. We cannot breathe under water. Going under symbolizes death. Indeed, John preached a “baptism of repentance”. He taught that following God meant dying to sin, turning away from old ways and entering into a new way life. Did Jesus need to get baptized? Did he need to turn away from old sin and death, and enter into new life? Obviously not. Yet by so doing, he showed the necessity for all his followers. He showed us that we must die to sin, and enter into a new path, a new way of life.

Baptism dramatizes the path from death to life. We have performed full immersion, going-all-the-way-under baptisms in Long Lake . You have to walk a good distance out from the beach to get in deep enough. You leave the shore behind. The water is cold—even in August. The person being baptized leans over backward. It can get a bit uncomfortable. Going under symbolizes the powerlessness we have in the face of death.

But then we start coming back up. We stand up straight, say a prayer of thanksgiving for God’s grace, climb up out of the water onto the beach, and walk back into the rest of our lives.

Why, though, do we seem to need to die to sin over and over again? Because we sin over and over again—that’s why. Rita Lovejoy, our church secretary, told me she recently saw a cartoon that showed a fierce, flaming dragon. It had the caption, “Sometimes, the dragon wins.” Think of sin as a dragon. It has evil intent. It hovers over us. (Strictly speaking, we could say it hovers within us.) Sometimes, the dragon wins. Sometimes—often—we cannot withstand it. We sin. Therefore we need to die to sin again and again, and to come to new life again and again.

If baptism signifies a new life rising out of death, communion signifies, well, a new life rising out of death. At his Last Supper, Jesus gave bread and the cup new meaning. He shared a Seder meal with his followers, an ancient Hebrew ritual that reenacted the Passover. Centuries before the Jews had suffered as slaves in Egypt . Moses had pleaded with Pharaoh for their release. But not even a series of terrible plagues softened Pharaoh’s heart. Those slaves were too valuable to lose.

Finally, God sent the plague of death to Egypt . Eldest sons in every house were killed. Only the Jews escaped, because God had warned them to paint their doorposts with the blood of a lamb. Meanwhile, they had also prepared traveling food, easy to fix for the quick getaway they expected God would provide them.

All those years later Jesus sat down to celebrate that same meal, with the same menu. He told his followers he would become the lamb whose blood would deliver all who believed in him. Each time we serve communion we sit down at that same table. Each time we share the symbolic elements of that meal we remember how God snatched life from death—even for us, when we believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Today we have the rare joy of remembering God’s promise to save those who follow his path in two ways: in baptism and in communion. Praise God that God snatches life from death!

Today we read of the moment when the Apostle Paul crossed over from Asia and landed in Europe . He carried with him the Gospel, the Good News. He would carry it deeper still into this new continent, all the way to Athens and Rome , the centers of thought and government in the world as he knew it. His path took him to places he likely never imagined going, and with him he took the news of the path Jesus had taken.

We can still take that path. As we baptize an infant this morning, let us all firmly fix his face in our minds. Let us see that face before us later on, as we take communion. Let us imagine him growing up, coming into a saving faith in Jesus in his own right, perhaps someday even having children of his own, children whom he might have baptized.

God only knows what path this baby will take through life. Of one thing, however, we can be sure: because Jesus snatched life from death, his path can lead to life. So can all of our paths. Praise God!