Baptism: Dying and Rising with Christ

Can a free cup of coffee remind you of your baptism? I think maybe it can. Hear me out. One of the perks of being a teacher and a pastor is that periodically and usually around the holidays, we are gifted with gift cards to our favorite coffee shops. I am doubly blessed because I am married to a teacher who doesn’t care for coffee. So, his gift cards become mine. I have several gift cards for my favorite local coffee shops and, of course, Starbucks. After a while, however, I started noticing that I would continually pay for my coffee and forget that I had all these gift cards piling up in my wallet. I’d come home with another cup of coffee, and my husband would ask, when are you going to use those gift cards? And I’d say, someday, when I quit forgetting that I have them. Here I am, sitting with free gifts just waiting to be used, and I keep using the old way of paying for my coffee.

Ok, ok, so not using my gift cards to pay for coffee isn’t sinning. But forgetting the gift cards I’ve been so freely given is similar to how I can quickly forget the newness of life given to me by the gift of grace through Jesus Christ. I love how The Message version paraphrases Romans 6:1: “So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good?”

If I’ve packed up and left for good, why do I keep wandering back to an old place that no longer serves me, where selfishness, pride, shame, and fear run rampant? I forget the gift given to me. I forget that I left sin behind when I was given this new life in Jesus. That is reinforced by the act of baptism, reminding me that living in the newness of Jesus’ grace continues to transform my life in profound ways, with gratitude and purpose.

In this new year, when we are resolving to improve ourselves, resolving and perhaps already failing to be more awesome, more beautiful, and more disciplined (which we tend to translate to more worthy of love), maybe this is a perfect time to hear about the day when Jesus was baptized, and what that means for all of us.

Because in your own baptism, God proclaims that God, just like with Jesus, is also well pleased in you, his beloved children. In the waters of your baptism, God claimed and named you as God’s own. Whether it was as an infant or a youth or an adult, whether your baptism happened in a church you can’t even remember, or in a river at Summer Camp or in a church you love or one that no longer allows you to take communion, your baptism, no matter the circumstance, was most certainly an act of God pouring God’s love and grace upon you as a promise of a new and better life. Nothing and no one can take that promise away, not even forgetting that promise from time to time.

Now I can look in my wallet and be reminded of those gift cards just waiting for me to use—promises of a “better way” of getting my favorite cup of coffee. But even better, when I remember my baptism, I’m reminded of the promise of a new life, that I’ve left that old house behind and stepped into a life that each day becomes a testimony of His grace—a light that shines in the darkness, reflecting His transformative power to the world, even through a cup of coffee.

If you’ve never been baptized and are interested in knowing more, you can find more information at resurrection.church/baptisms. We’d love to walk alongside you.