Romans 6:3-11; Isaiah 65:17-25; John 20:1-18
It was sure dark in here. It was as dark as in an underground cavern when the guide turns off the lights. We couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. It’s claustrophobic, like everything was closing in us. Like in a horror movie where the intended victims are caught in pitch darkness and there isn’t a sound to be heard. Yet there is this creepy feeling that there is something unseeable there that is going to get us. We don’t know what or where. Yes, it was dark in here. Dark as a tomb. That’s it. We were buried.
That’s the image that Paul uses. We were buried together with Christ. Before Christ came along, we were dying in sin. Living was like a zombie movie: Day of the Living Dead. Sin was slowly choking us, smothering us, squeezing the last remaining bit of life out of us. We had one foot in the grave and it was only a matter of time until the other one went in.
Then, just as we were about to take the last gasping breath, Christ came along sucked sin out of us. Instead of being totally swallowed up by sin, Christ swallows up our sin – everyone’s sin – and takes it with him to the grave. He allows sin to kill him so that we may have life. It’s like some of the stories of Jesus casting out demonic spirits from people. The demons are cast out and the victim is at first lifeless. Then Jesus presents them alive to their family and friends. In that brief moment, they died to the force that overpowered them. Then they receive the new life of Christ’s redemption. When Christ took away our sins, we died to those sins. Then the new life took over.
We were buried through baptism into Christ’s death. It was dark there, dark as a tomb. Then all of a sudden, we burst out into the light. It blinds the eyes. It boggles the mind.
If you watch a lot of police shows on television or read crime thrillers, you know that sometimes it is necessary to dig up the body of a victim to check for additional forensic details. The technical term is exhumation. The body is exhumed. We were buried, entombed in our sin until Christ came along. Then we were ex-tombed, taken out of death. In the risen Christ we have been ex-tomb-mated, dug out of death, born into the new life, born again, raised.
That’s the simple message of Easter: once we were dead and now we are alive. “Don’t you know,” says Paul, “that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried together with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life.”
Paul had not been to Rome, although he planned to go on his next trip. We don’t know that any apostle had made it to Rome by that time. Yet Paul states what must have been common knowledge: Christians have died to sin. And if they have died to sin, then they have been raised to new life with Christ. They have been ex-tomb-mated. Easter isn’t a glowing feeling or an emotional experience. It is the sure and certain knowledge that Christ died and that Christ was raised.
This knowledge is what we are baptized into. Greek has two words which we can translate as “baptism.” One is simple. It means to “dip” or “immerse.” The other word begins at immerse and gets stronger. It is the word which is used in the original texts of the New Testament. It always points to a change having taken place by some means. James Montgomery Boice cites an example provided by the Greek poet and physician Nicanor.(1) The Greek offers a recipe for pickles which uses both Greek words. First the vegetable should be dipped in boiling water. Then it is “baptized” in vinegar. It is this second action that changes the cucumber into a pickle.
When we are baptized, we are not merely rinsed. We are changed. Being baptized into the resurrection of Christ changes everything. We are born again, we are new creations. We are ex-tomb-mated from the coffin of sin and made alive in the glory of the Son of God. “This is what we know” says Paul, “the person that we used to be was crucified with him in order to get rid of the corpse that had been controlled by sin.”
When Christ was raised from death, when he was released from the tomb, this is what he did, he got rid of the corpse infected with sin – our sin – and brought us along with him in the new life. And because we have been united with him, we can’t go back. We can’t go back to the sinful life that was buried on that Friday afternoon. We are new creatures. We are changed. We have been ex-tomb-mated. We are freed from the tyranny of sin. To use the words of Augustine, union with Christ through baptism into his death and resurrection has changed us from the state of “not being able not to sin” into the state of “being able not to sin.” Easter is this new state of being for us.
Paul continues, “If we died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with him. We know that Christ has been raised from the dead and he will never die again. Death no longer has power over him. He died to sin once and for all with his death, but he lives for God with his life.” Paul does not intend for us to think that living with Jesus refers to some future time or state. Yes, there is a future resurrection at the end of the age. In the here and now Jesus has moved from the sphere of existence where death reigned through crucifixion and burial to the sphere of the resurrection, from where he was to where he is now.
When Paul says that “we will also live with him,” he means that we also pass from the reign of death to the reign of grace, to a present resurrection. What Christ has done for us is not something for the end of time or the end of our bodily living. Resurrection – new life – ex-tomb-mation – is for the here and now.
Paul concludes this section of his letter to the Roman faithful with his first exhortation of the letter: “You also should consider yourselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.” Paul has spent the first ten verses of the chapter telling us, reminding us, reassuring us of what God has already done. It has all been God’s work in Christ, through Christ, with Christ. We are joined to Christ not through anything we have done but through what God has done. The resurrection has sealed it once and for all for us.
Paul’s use of the word “consider” brings this home to us in a sharp way. Paul’s use of the word is more than just a pondering or musing about the possibility. The Greek word behind it is an accounting term which is very specific. It doesn’t call for an opinion. It denotes a fact: You ARE dead to sin and you ARE alive for God in Christ Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus and our participation is not wishful thinking. It is not pie-in-the-sky hopefulness. It is a God-given truth.
This reality causes us as post-Easter people to redefine the way we view church. It is not simply a building that we go to on a weekly basis. Church is who each of us is on a daily basis. I am the church, you are the church, we are the church, and we are called to reflect the image of Jesus in our everyday lives. When we take this reality to heart, every aspect of our lives then becomes a mission field, a space to worship in, and a realm to shine our light in. The world is our canvas, and the Holy Spirit wants to use you and me to create a masterpiece known as the Great Commission.(2)
That began when the risen Lord Jesus told Mary to go and tell the disciples what he was up to. And she does: “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18). We are called to do the same, because we are dead to sin and alive for God.
I had an artistic idea yesterday with neither time nor skill to carry out. Wouldn’t it be something if, while we were in here this morning having our sunrise resurrection celebration, the outside Lobby wall of the Sanctuary was covered with brown craft paper all scrunched up to look like a rocky hillside and the open doors a carved cave entrance. More scrunched up craft paper could be formed into a stone. All this so that when we left this space at the end of the service we understood that we were coming out of the tomb with Christ, that we were ex-tomb-mated, that we were people raised from the death of sin into life for God. Right now. Today. This minute.
Friends, the resurrection good news is this: In Christ, you are dead to sin and alive for God.
Christ is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! ALLELUIA!
(1) James Montgomery Boice, Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), vol. 2, 659.
(2) Jarrid Wilson, http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/275550-christianity-is-so-much-more-than-going-to-church.html.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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