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We have already seen in the lectionary readings over Romans
chapter five that Paul’s argument is highly dependent upon the practice
of baptism. How appropriate that on the Sunday traditionally set aside for
the baptism of new believers that our Easter Celebration text should call
us to rejoice in the new life of the resurrection experienced in baptism.
Often on Easter we use a text that narrates the resurrection event in the
life of Christ. This is good and appropriate. But how exciting to discover
that the heart of this text is not just a rehearsal of the power of the resurrection
in the life of Jesus, but a testimony to the ongoing power of the resurrection
in the lives of believers.
In this passage, Paul again deals with important themes that
dominate the book of Romans: law and grace, death and life, the old aeon and
the new aeon, sin and righteousness. Chapter six begins by Paul asking an
important question, “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin
in order that grace may abound?” This is a logical question given Paul’s
argument in Romans to this point. If the inadequacy and sin of the law has
been confronted by grace, and “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the
more,” then a logical conclusion could be drawn that we ought to keep
sinning in order that God’s grace and glory would be multiplied.
To give an example, sometimes people will say about a wife who
puts of with a cranky husband, “Isn’t she a saint? I can’t
believe she puts up with and still loves him with all his faults.” His
contentiousness brings her honor for her patient and enduring love. That being
the case, it could be argued as logical that he ought to be even crankier
and more difficult to live with because that will only increase her honor
in the eyes of others for putting up with an even more difficult spouse.
Paul’s answer to this logic is, “By no means!”
To continue to sin would only lead to a kind of irrational sinfulness that
would make a mockery out of God’s grace. But more importantly, if we
continue to sin, then we fail to understand what we participated in as believers
when we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ.
In theological circles the term eschatology refers to the study
of “last things.” Most people associate eschatology with folk who
draw charts and write books attempting to predict future events based upon
the apocalyptic writings in the scripture. Perhaps a better way of thinking
eschatologically is to reflect on how we live our lives today pointing toward
the end that we believe to be coming—the renewal of all the creation.
To live eschatologically means that we are already living into and participating
in the future coming of the Kingdom.
For Paul, as we have already seen in Romans, there are two ages
or aeons going on at the same time. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
brought into history a new aeon, a new age—the age of God’s Kingdom.
We are not simply waiting for the Kingdom to come someday, we are participating
today in the present Kingdom as we await its ultimate consummation.
The old aeon is an age dominated by the “principalities
and powers.” There is a different language that is spoken by the principalities
and powers. The rulers of this age use words like slave, master, law, punishment,
war, and political power. This language creates forms of life that are based
upon fear, coercion, manipulation of others, and upon violence.
On the other hand, the language of the Kingdom is spoken using
terms such as grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace.
The form of life of the age of the Kingdom is a community that calls itself
the Body of Christ. In this community all parts are equal and all parts are
needed. In this community outsiders and enemies are not destroyed but are
loved and reconciled into the body. In this community the life of peace and
grace that is to come is eschatologically embodied in the relationships we
live out today.
The problem is: we are caught between the two Kingdoms. We are
trapped between two forms of life. And worst of all, the earthly kingdom not
only seems more real because it has power, wealth and glory, but it also threatens
us with death if we do not participate in its life.
God’s answer was to unmask the truth about the principalities
and powers in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus confronted the old
age, but refused to participate in life on its terms.
Whenever Jesus confronted Pharisees and teachers of the law
who wanted to shape life in the language of law and guilt, he countered with
the power of the language of grace and mercy. In each of these encounters
the futility of the law was demonstrated and unmasked. The law kept lepers
secluded, it kept paralytics on their mats, and it kept sinners at an arm’s
length. The power of God’s grace revealed in Jesus brought healing to
lepers, made paralytics leap for joy, and transformed sinners into saints.
What the old aeon of law could not do, the new aeon of grace accomplished.
When Jesus confronted the power of Caesar and the political
posturing of the temple leaders who kept people obedient through fear of torture
and death, he countered with not only a willingness to suffer and die, but
he countered with an unwillingness to respond with threats of violence of
his own. The powerful violence of the empire could not change the hearts of
people it could only coerce people into obedience as long as power was maintained.
The power of the resurrection demonstrated that God’s life, not Caesar’s
ability to create death has the final word in the world. What the power of
the sword could not do—change the hearts of people—the power of
the resurrection has accomplished. If the final threat of the principalities
and powers is to enact death, they are now powerless, because Jesus rose from
the dead.
The empire has no power now because frightened, denying disciples,
through the power of the resurrection, have become cost-counting, martyrdom-accepting
apostles.
Our response is to enact the resurrection story in our lives.
“You also must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ
Jesus.” The resurrection is not a one-time act by God in the life of
Jesus allowing him to overcome sin and death, it is the everyday enactment
of the freedom from sin and death in the life of the believer.
(For the full manuscript of this sermon
go to www.preachersmagazine.org and click on “Sermons”)
What a great text for the first day of the Easter season. There
is a big difference between knowledge and participation. So often we hear
the Easter story or watch enactments of the crucifixion and resurrection as
distanced listeners or observers. Even our praise and worship at times becomes
about standing at a distance and thanking God for the work that he did in
Christ as though it was a one-time event, done apart from us, for which we
are now the beneficiaries. But it is one thing to be thankful for the death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it is another thing to participate in
it, to live into it, to be transformed by it.
That idea of our participation with Christ is the richness of
this Easter text. Our old self was crucified with him. We were buried with
him. And now we live with him in the power of his resurrection.
What a thrill on Easter to realize that the death and destruction,
the sin and the evil that we saw all around us as we journeyed through Lent
does not have the last word in the world. Sin and death do not win in the
life of Christ—the resurrection power of God wins.
In the same way, we come to God trapped by sin, broken by rebellion,
and possessed by evil. Yet in the life of every believer the story of Lent
and Easter is retold. We who were once dead in our trespasses are now alive
in Christ Jesus. Should we keep on living in slavery to sin? Of course not!
Because Jesus lives, we too live.
That is the gospel. That is good news.