New Creation: A Baptismal Exhortation
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Cor 5:17)
Prayer: Almighty God, who formed the earth out of water and through water by your word, who saved Noah and his family through water while destroying the wicked, who delivered your people Israel through the Sea while defeating Pharaoh and his armies, all of which are types of baptism into Christ Jesus, we pray that you will look mercifully upon these children, saving them with your people while destroying sin and death. May they, throughout their lives, relying upon the grace you give to them this day, continue to mortify sin so that at the last day they may participate in the resurrection of the just and reign with Christ Jesus eternally. Amen
Since the time of the fall, new creation was the plan. New creation wouldn’t be the annihilation of the old creation but its transformation into what God intended from the beginning. New creation would be old creation transformed through overcoming sin and death.
The new creation couldn’t be realized until sin and death were conquered because death interrupted the movement from one stage of glory to another. The old creation had to die. Death was the just desert for sin. As long as sin and its death dominated the creation, God’s purposes for the world could never be realized.
We are all conceived in sin, inheriting the guilt and corruption of Adam’s sin. We are conceived as old creation. For this reason, we must die. To say that Jesus died for us is not to say that we no longer must die. Death is an absolute necessity. The benefit of Jesus’ death for us is that we can die with him; that is, we can participate in his death and in his death our old creation selves die.
When we die in union with Christ Jesus, we die with the promise of his resurrection. The old creation man must still die. That is why each of us must be baptized, because in baptism we are buried with Christ in death, as Paul says to the Romans (Rom 6). But if we die with him in baptism, we will also be raised with him, Paul concludes. Christ is the new creation. To be united with Christ, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, is to be new creation.
Today these children will die with Christ just as the rest of us in the church have died with Christ. But they will also be raised with him and be a new creation in Christ Jesus. They, like the rest of us, are a part of God’s promised future world.
New creation like the original is not a completed product but a project. They will need to cultivate their faith consistently, learning what it means to live as God’s new creation.
They must develop this new creation that God has given them just as Adam and Eve were to develop the original creation.
Fathers and mothers, your role in their lives is vital for their continuing lives in the faith. They belong to Jesus, but he has given them to you to be faithful stewards, bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of our Lord. Be faithful to your calling.
Church, encourage these families to faithfulness.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
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