Baptized Into Jesus' Death

Brad Sullivan

Easter Vigil, Year C

March 26, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Romans 6:3-11

Luke 24:1-12

Baptized Into Jesus’ Death

Alleluia, Christ is risen!  Gosh that feels good to say.  We get to revel in the glory of Jesus’ resurrection again.  I know we still have been throughout Lent, but our focus was more on our shortcomings and failings and the reasons for Jesus suffering and death.  Now, our focus is more squarely on Jesus and his resurrection, the effects of his suffering and death.  Those effects are life, restoration, and reconciliation for all.

Why did Jesus have to die?  We get questions like these from kids, from adults, from Christians and from non-Christians.  We often say, “to pay for our sins,” and that is true, but it also leads to questions about why, if God is so forgiving, did God not just forgive us outright?  Why take the penalty on himself?  There are a variety of answers posed:  to satisfy God’s justice, to satisfy God’s vengeance, simply because it just doesn’t seem right not to have someone pay the penalty.   All valid and possibly true answers, but let’s look at Jesus’ death from the standpoint of his life and incarnation.  Why did Jesus have to die?  Because we die.

In the incarnation, God joined himself fully to humanity in Jesus.  That was the point, to restore us to unity with God.  If we’re going to be fully restored to God, then we must be restored to God even in death, and if we’re going to be fully restored to God, then we have to be restored to God even in sin.  I supposed Jesus could have suddenly started sinning, God sinning against humanity in order to join with us even in ways that we harm each other, fracture our relationships, and separate ourselves from God and each other, but he didn’t.  God loves us too much suddenly to decide to sin against us, and we’ve got more than enough sin and harm to go around, so Jesus took our sins upon himself on the cross so that even our disconnection from God has been united to God. 

On the cross, Jesus took all of the ways that we harm each other and disconnect ourselves from each other and from God, Jesus took all of that, and united himself to it, so that even at our worst, we can still be united to God.  Those who have murdered people and raped people, those who have abused their bodies with drugs and harmed other people with drugs, those whose hearts are hardened by unforgiveness and those whose hearts are broken by shame, even those who kill themselves and others in acts of terrorism:  all of their sins were united to Jesus on the cross.  All of our sins were united to Jesus on the cross.

That’s why Jesus had to die, to unite us to God in life, in sin, and in death. 

Then, Jesus was resurrected.  Jesus defeated death and rose again from the dead to eternal life.  Jesus was and is still united to humanity in his resurrection, so in Jesus life, death, and resurrection, we are united to God in life, sin, death, and in eternal life after death. 

Death has been transformed into a vehicle from life to life eternal.  That is why Jesus had to die, so that we could live.  Even at our darkest moments, in the pit of despair, at the bottom of the sea of silence, in the suffering of sin and the finality of death, Jesus is there saying, “come with me, for our life together is not over.  Come with me into the light, and share with me in life everlasting.”  Amen.