Changed by Baptism

December 2009

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:3-5)

In the letter to the Romans, St. Paul describes our lives as being changed by baptism.

What kind of change is this? Is the new reality that accompanies baptism more like a grievous loss or a change for the better?

The three-year-old son of a friend of mine was baptized last summer. After the service, his mother asked him what he thought of the experience. He said, “Mom, it wasn’t so bad.” We might wonder whether this preschooler was commenting on the experience of standing before the congregation and the amount of water that washed over his head or intuiting something more profound about the whole experience (as young children are often able to do in matters of faith).

As Christians, we trust that something really happened to that three-year-old in this sacramental event. It was more than a ceremonial bath in front of a group of family members and friends. Whether or not he understands the fullness of his experience, as Paul has written, this child has been united with Christ in a way that will carry him all the days of his life. He has been changed by baptism.

A few months ago my sister Jean heard Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson preach. During the sermon, Bishop Hanson urged the congregation to remember their baptism every day. She told me, “Now I look in the mirror each morning, then place my hand on my head, and say aloud, ‘I am a child of God and I have a purpose in life.’”

Baptized more than 80 years ago, this recent widow has found renewed purpose and hope in remembering her baptismal identity. She knows much more about the trials and challenges of real life than does a three-year-old, and yet the news of being changed by baptism has come to her in a fresh and vibrant way in this later season of her life.

Whether we were baptized as infants or as adults, what does it mean to live a life united with Christ and his death and resurrection? What does it mean to be changed by baptism?

Theology of grace

As Lutheran Christians, we have an understanding of baptism that includes a sense of tension or paradox. We believe that baptism is a sacrament that both changes us once and for all and gives us a new identity into which we grow through the many seasons and experiences of our life. The way we are changed in baptism is deeply personal and yet also transforms our relationship to the world in the broadest sense.

Most of all, we confess that the change that comes to us in baptism comes through God’s activity—not through our own theological understanding or personal endeavor. These convictions grow out of Paul’s testimony about the baptized life in his letter to the Romans.

Lutherans confess that baptism, like its sister sacrament of holy communion, is God’s gift and not a mark of our own achievement. We acknowledge this when we speak of baptism in terms of the theology of grace. Lutherans join many other Christians in baptizing infants and young children, as well as welcoming into the baptismal life adolescents and adults who have heard the invitation to follow Christ. When Paul writes about Abraham in Romans 4, he outlines the theology of grace by which the promises given to the patriarch rested not on his shoulders but upon the trustworthiness of God.

Think of baptismal services you have attended. While parents and sponsors (or those being baptized if they are adolescents or adults) are asked to make commitments about how the newly baptized will live as Christians, the sacrament itself is pure gift. The liturgy does not call for a chronicling of previous achievements. Rather, the word and the water bespeak the generosity of the God we know as Father, Son, and Spirit. Consequently, the change that occurs in baptism is a change that happens to us through God’s presence and power at work in our lives.

Saints and sinners

Lutherans speak of their lives as ones in which we are at the same time saints and sinners. You may have heard the Latin phrase simul justus et peccator used to describe this tension in which the baptized live in the new reality of being united with the Risen Christ and yet wrestle with the same temptations that besiege all people.

For the three-year-old, being both saint and sinner was probably apparent before the day of his baptism was even over. The widow in her 80s could certainly tell you of times when she wished she had trusted more in God’s faithfulness or responded differently to her neighbors, even though the change brought about by her baptism happened more than eight decades ago.

Yet Paul admonishes the community of faith in Rome to remember their own baptism in a way that will distinguish their lives from the lives of other citizens of that imperial city.

Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Paul reminds us that our own lives serve as a kind of public testimony to others. Since baptism creates a new relationship with God, freeing us from the power of sin, death, and the devil, in times of disappointment or crisis or anxiety we really don’t need to be scared to death—for we have already died and been raised with Christ Jesus.

God has wrapped the whole of our lives in promises that are stronger than even our greatest fears. That may not seem so significant when all is going well in our lives, but in a time of crisis or doubt there is no better assurance of God’s enduring grace.

At the same time, baptism calls us to give our lives away in service to others. We don’t have to spend a lifetime accruing accomplishments or wealth to prove that our life amounted to something. Instead, we are free to care about others in their needs and to care about the whole creation. In Romans 6:22, Paul describes this freedom as an advantage, or a fruit, of our new status before God. But what kind of change is that—loss or gain?

A new direction

We do lose something when we are baptized. We lose responsibility for defining the core of our lives—of having to come up with a good enough reason in God’s eyes for living the way that we do. Whatever else we may experience, once we are baptized, we belong to Christ. His death and resurrection now define the center of our lives—not just sometimes, but all the time. “I am a baptized child of God!” is the truest thing we can say about ourselves.

When we look at our face in the mirror each morning, we can delight and give thanks that we do have a purpose in life—God’s purpose. One way to picture this is to imagine that the natural global positioning of our life has been reoriented toward a new homeward direction as our life is united with Christ’s death and resurrection. That reorientation doesn’t remove any of the ordinary challenges we will face as we grow through the years, but in another sense, everything has changed.

Do you know Christians who were baptized as adults? For some, this may have followed on the heels of a life-changing experience. Through such a transformation, they came to see the center of their life and their life’s purpose in a startlingly fresh way. Living through marital strife or serious illness, the move from addiction into recovery, a disappointment in one’s educational plans or career, or a near-death experience are often critical times that precipitate a conversion experience and lead to baptism.

If we were baptized as infants or young children, it may seem that such moments of high drama and intensity challenge the life-long unfolding of baptismal faith. But is the reorientation really different in those two experiences? For both the infant and the adult, this change is brought about by the gracious power of God, creating a new life in Christ.

A transformed life

What does it look like when the gracious power of God is at work in a life? Paul describes the way in which the life of the person reoriented by baptism increases in maturity.

. . . We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

Here the apostle is describing what happens over an extended period of time. Endurance, character, and hope are consequences of a life well lived in this new way. The same grace that removes our need to generate good enough reasons for God to love us now opens our lives to the transformative shaping of God’s presence. Whether we think of this as lifelong faith formation or growth in Christian maturity, this is part of what we mean when we say we have been changed by baptism.

At the conclusion of his letter to the Romans, Paul writes,

We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. (Romans 15:1-2)

Showing such mercy and patience will mean something quite different for the three-year-old and for the octogenarian, but it is one example of the new way of caring for others that we live out when we are changed by baptism.

Think of the most mature Christians you know, no matter what their age. What fruits of this new life do you see in those who have been buried and raised with Christ Jesus? How do they speak of their confidence in the power of God? Those characteristics, too, describe the change that comes from living out of God’s grace. Those lives—like ours and the life of Apostle Paul himself—give witness day by day to what it means to be changed by baptism.

The Rev. Patricia Lull is dean of students at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., and also volunteers as an affiliated pastor at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in St. Paul. She is grateful for all who continue to bear with her as she grows in her baptismal identity.