PART 1 - THE INCARNATIONAL FOUNDATION OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
Chapter 1 – Our Dying World
We have many questions about a possible nuclear holocaust, an AIDS epidemic, mortgage payments in an economic downturn, a parent’s death, a friend’s cancer, but they all finally boil down to one central issue: Where are we headed in this world of ours?
The moral crisis, the materialism of our world, the false god pleasure, the emptiness of the plastic people around us all confront us, but underneath it is a deep hunger for reality. We are lonely people, longing for genuine togetherness. We have no real friends. We’re starving for love.
Wanting to be close and personal, people try sex without commitment—and end up even more alone and farther apart. The sexual aberrations of our age are wrong and sinful, but they’re also extremely sad.
Who will look at all this plastic emptiness and loneliness and cheap imitation and describe what it is? God will. He calls it by its painfully simple name: death.
The good news of Christianity is that in the person of Jesus Christ, God came among us to give us life to the full (
John 10:10). He shapes our life for the 21st century.
Chapter 2 – Our Living Lord
While death is a reality, there is another reality just as real: the reality of the life God brings into this dying world of ours. In the person of Jesus Christ eternal life has made a personal appearance in this dying world of ours.
But is this so? The disciples of Jesus made this claim. They claimed to have seen and touched the eternal Lord and God. “The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us” (
1 John 1:1-2). The shocking claim of Jesus Christ is that He is God who has taken up residence in tangible human flesh. He is God with us.
The oldest Christian creeds, summaries of Christian belief, were hammered out in lively debate over this pivotal paradox: the baby born in a barn at Bethlehem was in reality the almighty God clothed in human flesh. In the manger the immortal God lay clothed in human flesh.
Now life has entered our dying world in person. This is why Jesus refers to himself as heavenly bread. Those who eat of this bread share in a life that transcends the grave.
In the infant Jesus the fullness of God was hiding. What you see there is more than what you get. When you look at this baby, you’re looking at God: the back side of God.
It’s no wonder that the authors of the New Testament spoke in hushed tones about this astounding wonder. They called it a mystery, not a “who done it” type mystery, but a deeply profound, but tangible, earthly link with eternity.
Through the power of His Spirit, Christ uses earthly channels to dispense His deathless life. His words are life. Through baptism and the meal we know as the Holy Supper or Communion, Jesus still comes hidden in water and blood: the water of Baptism and the blood of the Holy Supper. A hidden reality stands behind the sacraments.
3 – Our Death/His Cross
In the coming of Christ into human flesh, the stage was set for conflict. This was a cosmic battle, and Jesus came out on top. “It was a fight to the death, and Jesus won the victory by his death. For once, the victim emerged the victor. The cross is not tragedy, but triumph. It is the drowning achievement of Jesus, the Epiphany King.”
The devil tried every trick in his book to keep Jesus from the cross. Hunger, power, prestige—all became weapons in the devil’s arsenal. But nothing could stop Jesus. He bore the offense and the shame of the cross. “In His naked, shameful death at the cross, the Lord of life embraced not merely sin’s guilt, but its shame as well. He bore the biting pain of our shame in His very body, and by his wounds we are healed (
Isaiah 53).
The death of Christ on His cross means the death of death itself. It is finished, cried Jesus with his dying breath (
John 19:30). The link now with the crucified and risen Lord is the life-giving water of Baptism. By baptism we die in Christ; by Baptism we live in Christ.
PART 2 – The Sacramental Focus of the Christian Life
4 – Holy Baptism: Water of Life
Fresh from the grave, the risen Lord gave instructions to His followers. Since He has all authority in heaven and on earth, they are to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The water of Baptism would be the agent of life for believers because it is also the agent of death for sin.
Christ’s victory over Satan and sin is personally applied to every believer in his Baptism. We come into this world as slaves of sin, death and hell. In the waters of Holy Baptism we are set free from slavery; we share in Christ’s victory. We are buried with Christ. We die to sin. Now every baptized believer lives “in Christ.”
The ancient church described baptized believers as fish, conceived in water, born to swim in water. And you know what happens to fish out of water.
Jesus rose from the dead on the third day of His burial, and that day began a new week. God’s new creation began after seven days. The first day of the week is thus the eighth day of creation and at the same time the first day of the new creation.
The same drama unfolds right into our lives. In Baptism we are joined to the risen Lord. We too rise from death into life. Baptism is our own personal eighth day, the beginning of our new creation as sons and daughters of the risen King.
From the day of our Baptism we are marked indelibly with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. The invisible Spirit’s seal is the visible sign of the cross of Christ. So Christians have cherished the sign of the cross as an ongoing reminder of baptismal identity. Baptism is our personal water of life in this dying world, our link with Christ, our link with life.
Next month we’ll complete our summary of Pr. Senkbeil’s insightful book as we look at Holy Absolution, the Holy Supper and the Liturgical shape of the Christian life.