From the Pastor

The Baptized Story
(Romans 6:1-11)

“Life is like stepping into a boat which is about to sail out into the sea and sink” (Shunryu Suzuki, 1904-1971). I ran across this quote recently and was saddened by how many hold to this narrative of life. Even within the Church, many of us can be darkened by the weight, burden, and work of daily life, tempted into the narrative that life is nothing more than work until you die and hope that you did good enough for a better life after this one. We would think that this talk has no place in the Church, but we find it in God’s Word as well. David says in Psalm 103:15 16, “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.” Soloman famously says in Ecclesiastes 1:2, “Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities! All is vanity!”

If this is the narrative of, not just the world, but also the Church, where is our hope? If the life of the Christian is simply to live and then die, hoping for the best along the way, then what is the point? Why live at all if we are simply working towards death?

If this has ever been your struggle, or the struggle of one you love, I have Good News. This is not your narrative; this is not your Story! For you, child of God, member of the body of Christ, His Church, the narrative has changed and you belong to a different Story. Outside of Christ, Suzuki is right, but with Christ everything has changed and you live with Christ! In your baptism, you already faced death, but not alone. “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death… For one who has died has been set free from sin” (Romans 6:4a, 7). In baptism, you have already died, your sins are dead and have no place in your life ever again. You have no need to fear death or dread the journey towards the end, because that death has already happened in your baptism, and that changes everything. David knew this when he continued in Psalm 103:17, “But the steadfast of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him” as well as Soloman in Ecclesiastes 3:14, “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before Him.” God has done His steadfastly enduring love for you in baptism. In those Word-filled-waters, all that God has to give was given to you, and nobody nor anything can ever take that away. Not only have you died with Christ in your baptism, you have also risen with Christ, “we too might walk in newness of life… we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His... you also must consider yourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6: 4, 5, 11). This is our Narrative; this is our Story in our resurrected Savior and Lord!

Your baptized brother in Christ,
Pastor Zach Sarrault