The LCA Provides This Sermon Edited for Lay-Reading, with Thanks to the Original Author s3

The LCA provides this sermon edited for lay-reading, with thanks to the original author.

4th Sunday in Lent, Year B Ephesians 2:4

A baptism is like going to a Specialist for treatment. First there is a scan, with a close study of the images, followed by a report, and maybe the recommendation for surgery. Before he operates, God does a spiritual scan and then reports the results. The patient was born with a selfish type of cancer. God, the spiritual doctor is alarmed. The Scriptures put it this way: “We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God’s anger just like everyone else.” [Ephesians 2:3b]

God sees where we can’t see. God sees way down deep inside us, even deeper than our subconscious. He can clearly see the spiritual life in the core of a person. The scan looks for evidence of love for God, and a heart full of trust, praise and thanks.

The diagnosis? Spiritually dead!

Further scans look for a loving concern for other people, including even one’s enemies. The scan shows up black and reveals a cancer, deep down where no one can see.

Some people don’t like the results of the scan. They don’t believe it. They don’t want to know about it. They think there has been a mistake and they refuse any treatment.

There is only one treatment for this disease: God recommends the miracle of baptism. It is like a serious and delicate operation. The Spirit of God is the surgeon. He destroys the spiritual cancer by using the cross of Christ as a ray that burns and destroys the sin. The Spirit then does a life saving transplant and puts in a new spiritual life of pure love for God and for other people. The blood of Jesus is always involved so it is compatible and the operation can always be a success. The Scriptures describe it in Titus 3 like this: “He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

In the operation, the Spirit of God implants Jesus into one’s inner self. When God runs a new spiritual scan to check on the success of the operation it shows up a perfect life of love for God and for other people. There couldn’t be a better result. It even shows up the deep loving concern for one’s enemies. God, the greatest doctor of all, tells us the operation was a success. The old, diseased soul has been completely removed. The new transplant has taken.

The operation is free. One could never pay the surgeon for this spiritual-life saving operation. One is not even asked to pay the “gap”! It is God’s amazing grace. All the riches of the world wouldn’t be enough to cover what this treatment is worth.

When one goes home from such an operation one might take a time to adjust, to get spiritually mobile. It takes time to adapt to living as a spiritual person. In fact, it can take a life time. Just as one needs to take tablets after major surgery – sometimes for the rest of one’s life here on earth – so one needs a regular dose of God’s Word to keep one spiritually healthy. Some people learn special words of Scripture off by heart and feed on them regularly. Some sing them in the words of songs and hymns. An old custom was to frame the words of a Bible verse and put it up on the wall. Some of us might take a dose every day from a book of spiritual readings, or when we get together in friendship groups to study God’s word, or when we gather together for Sunday worship. One needs the spiritual exercise and the tablets to stay spiritually healthy.

1 The old disease can return and take over again, like a cancer can return and swallow up the healthy organs in one’s body. Without taking the tablets of God’s Word and without the medicine of the bread and wine in Holy Communion, the old selfish nature returns and gradually spreads deep down where one can’t see. One can become spiritually sick and one can become spiritually dead – and stay that way. Some people choose to live that way. God respects their decision. God doesn’t force people to accept his amazing grace, or force people to take spiritual medicine. One can reject it just as one can reject the offer of a transplant.

So we need God-fearing parents and godparents to keep the little ones healthy; to feed them on the Scriptures so they grow stronger in the Jesus who lives in them. Godparents have a very important role in ensuring children grow up into healthy, spiritual people.

Perfect spiritual health can take a long time: in fact, complete healing doesn’t happen until the resurrection. Then one is completely healthy and full of new life. Water is sometimes sprinkled on a coffin at a funeral to remind us of the new life that began many years earlier in the waters of baptism, and is now complete. One might say it could take a hundred years before one finally gets home after this operation!

You and I are always dying, but we are on the way to eternal life. Romans 6:3 says: “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was.”

The final outcome of the operation of baptism is eternal life.

We don’t need to be afraid of God scanning us. He wants to do it so we can become healthy. We can continue to grow spiritually as we feed on God’s healthy grace, hearing the Word and taking the medicine of Holy Communion. The old symptoms of selfishness show up again and again, but the grace of God is powerful medicine and will win out in the end.

The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.