Do you not know?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"  (Romans 6:3 - appointed to be read at The Great Vigil of Easter)

Paul asks this question of the early Christian community in Rome, the place that will become so central to the development and spread of the gospel in the western world. Keep in mind that he hasn’t yet met these people. Unlike most of his letters (where he is the founding pastor and he says things like, “tell Chloe I said hey!” or “give my best to Prisca and Aquila”) in Romans he addresses “all of God’s beloved in Rome who are called to be saints.” He is introducing himself to a congregation that he doesn’t know.

Like all of us, St. Paul had his “issues.” Even his biggest fans know that he is not the Christ, that he is hardly the Son of God. He is a sinner like the rest of us. And a saint like the rest of us. But theologically, even when you disagree with Paul, you have to admit he really does get it. And pastorally, even when he needs to get tough with his parishioners, it seems obvious that he really does love the people to whom he writes and that they love him back. That is the very heart of pastoral ministry. So I imagine that when those letters to the early Christians in Corinth or Galatia or Thessalonica were first read aloud, there were a few times when people rolled their eyes or smiled and thought, “oh boy, here he goes again, but that's our guy!” 

But in Rome, they don’t have that kind of relationship with Paul. They can’t hear his voice as the letter gets read aloud to them. So I have this fantasy that as the people gathered in some house church in Rome to hear the scriptures and break the bread together, that when they got to this part in the sixth chapter that some kid in the back yells out, “yes, of course we know that…we know all about baptism!”

And maybe that kid’s mom turns to him and says, “Shhh. I think it’s a rhetorical question, honey.” (To which the kid says, "what's rhetorical mean, mom?")

It’s like when the prophet Isaiah says, “have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?”(See Isaiah 40) Isaiah knows in that time and place that those exiles do know and that they have heard and they have been told their whole lives, even if they have momentarily forgotten. Because remembering can be hard, they know and we know. So rhetorical questions call out from deep within us what we already trust is true. We just need to be reminded...

I think that Paul is doing very much the same thing in the sixth chapter of Romans. “Don’t you know that baptism into Christ is all about dying?” I think he expects the congregation to say, “amen, preach" or if they are quieter 8 o'clock Episcopal congregation then to at least nod their heads knowingly. "Yes we do know that.” 

It’s not an argument. It’s not a question. It’s a statement of faith. Baptism is about dying with Christ. In Mexico, I’m told that when parents bring their newborn children to be baptized in the font they carry them in a little casket to make the point. That may sound a bit scary to us if it's not our tradition, but it’s very good theology. So yes, Holy Baptism is about dying with Christ. It’s what follows that is really Paul’s point. He buries the lead. If you know it, then act like it. 

Christ died, and was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. So if we really have died with Christ, we can now live with Christ. It’s time to walk the talk: if we are freed to walk in newness of life, then we should indeed walk in newness of life.  Sin and death have been defeated. We should then live as Easter people, so the world might believe.

Our experience (and even our common sense) tells us that you are born one day and then eventually we will all die. We can live in fear of that or in denial of that or even as brave soldiers in the face of that. But Paul insists that Holy Baptism turns that whole concept upside down and inside out. Our Baptismal identity is tied up with the three-day journey we are about to embark upon yet again this Holy Week, from death to new life. The Christian journey is meant to mirror that Paschal mystery, so that we put our fear of death behind us in order to get busy living. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into this death? 

Yes, of course. We know. But the reminder takes us back to our roots and back to the heart of the matter. St. Paul reminds those early Christians in the middle of the first century at Rome of their Baptism, and what it means and what it requires of them. And down through the centuries, to this very time and place, we are also being reminded, and in that reminder we dare to hear "a word of the Lord." 

Yep, Paul. We know we have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death, which means that we are now called to live and act toward the promise of new life, to live and act with a kind of defiant hope, to live and act for freedom and the dignity of all, and to strive for justice in an unfair world. 

Easter isn’t something we “prove”—it’s a way of life. Each year, sometime in Holy Week, I return to the Easter sermon of a fourth-century preacher who was nicknamed “golden tongue” to get my bearings and to remember what this week is about and where we are headed. All that we do this week culminates at the empty tomb, so that we can remember who we are.

Good old St. John Chrysostom's Easter sermon has stood the test of time. While faith is always new and has to be responsive to the needs of our contemporary context, if we are not careful, our desire to be relevant can become pretty shallow. So I find it helpful to get back to the roots - back to Paul's Letter to the Church in Rome and back to the Easter sermon of a golden-tongued preacher in the fourth century. Since Easter was the time that the newly baptized converts to the faith would also come to the Table to share in their first communion with the faithful, Chrysostom extended this invitation to all who gathered at the Easter Vigil “to taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” Here, in part, is what he said - more poetry, I think, than prose:

        First and last alike receive your reward;
        Rich and poor, rejoice together!
        Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
        You that have kept the fast and you that have not.

        Rejoice today for the table is richly laden!
        Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
        Let no one go away hungry.
        Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
        Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!       

        Let no one grieve at his poverty,
        For the universal kingdom has been revealed.
        Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
        For forgiveness has risen from the grave.
        Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
        He has destroyed death by enduring it. *

Yep. We know. Help us, Lord, to walk the talk. 

* Chrysostom's full sermon can be found here.