We baptized 7 people this past Sunday in a joyous celebration of God’s work in their lives and their determination to be Jesus’s people. Standing next to the pool where we baptized these committed people, I shared the following brief introduction:

This is a grave; you could say that we are attending a burial at sea. Today, we bury the “old persons” that Andi, Amanda, Travis, Aaron, Jennifer, Hannah, and Melissa have been. When they connected to Messiah Jesus by faith, they doomed the old person they were without Christ to death. This is a grave.

This is nursery, a garden, where we “plant” seeds and watch them spring to life before our eyes. “For if we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” Or, as the King James wonderfully puts it, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” These friends will be planted, watered, and will spring up to glory. So far, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, we have only seen the seed. What wonder will it be to see the flower in bloom?

This is a stage, and we are the audience, watching with fascination as we see the life and death and new life of these loved ones played out before our eyes. But it will be lived out in a world that is full of joys and woes, and they will need us, the people of Jesus, to live it together with them. Let’s help each other live the Jesus way.