A New World

To live daily in baptism is to be able live in a new world, the new world Jesus Christ gives us. In our baptism we died to sin and rose to new life. Jesus takes us into his new world where the old powers of evil lose their grip.         

A friend opened the February 2008 issue of the Good Housekeeping for me to read, and there on pages 87-88 was a powerful example. It was even more powerful for me because I had a personal connection.         

The story was one of forgiveness where you wouldn’t expect to find it – in a teenage driver’s carelessness resulting in the death of a young husband and father. In the blink of an eye so many lives were changed, among them a young mother and her infant daughter’s. “The best person I ever met” was the way this young mom describes her loss.         

But she decided in the painful weeks that followed that she would not raise her daughter in a world where her anger was the primary focus. So when the teenage driver owned up to her grave mistake, this young widow decided to open the door of her heart to forgiving her. Instead of the driver serving prison time, the driver and the wife of the man whose death she caused began telling their story – together – to other teenage drivers. And each time the tears flow. And, dare it be said, that maybe even some healing occurs. Amazing. Find the magazine; read the story.         

Here is a new world, really it is, where hatred, anger, and grudges do not rule. These old powers have lost their deadly grip. They are replaced by Jesus’ new world where forgiveness lives and peace begins to dwell. Oh, don’t misunderstand, this is not some Camelot where these qualities come easily and then vanish quickly as well. The forgiving may even be like Jesus described it, “Seventy times seven” times, or having to do it more times than you can count. But in the end, the real end, there is a new experience of the kingdom of heaven. People get something of God’s new world. 

That’s baptismal spirituality: the old dies, and in Christ the new arises. The old powers of hate and looking for revenge lose their grip.         

This story of forgiveness touches my own heart. You see, I had the funeral for that wonderful young man. I did, one cold December day. I have seen the incredible pain and sadness his death brought. What a beautifully different day this one: that a Good Housekeeping article would become my own reminder of one more time God keeps his promises. The promises anchored in baptism.          

Happy New Year!

It was 4:00 p.m., December 31 and I was making a bank stop. I was about to greet my banker with a “Happy New Year” when he said, “It’s now the new year in this bank.” (He said this because transactions after 3:00 counted on the next day’s business.)  “Yes, it is possible to see into the future,” he continued with a gleam in his eye, “and it’s looks very much like the past.” We laughed. So how do we get a new future that’s not just the past all over again? 

Ninety-two year old Norman Borlaug who received the Congressional Gold Medal in July knows something of the answer – which is anchored deep in the  waters of baptism. Borlaug grew up in northeast Iowa near a little junction in the road called Saude. He went on to a career in science developing disease-resistant high yield wheat that literally saved millions of lives from starvation. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contribution to world peace through food production. 

In “A high-yield life,” The Lutheran quotes Texas Senator John Cornyn as saying that “Borlaug views the future through the words of Isaiah: ‘And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose . . . And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.’” Now that’s a real new year! How does Borlaug think this will happen? “My whole philosophy,” he says, “goes to training young people” [in the sciences, too, he means] “who are willing to take risks.” 

People who are baptized should be the most ready to understand what he means – and take those risks. The pattern of our baptism itself is risk: letting go of the old and grabbing the new. Dying to sin, rising to new life. How much more breath-taking can it be! At the same time, in our baptism we have been bonded to Christ. We can risk things for this life because we have a security in Christ that’s greater than this life.  

I really think Borlaug knows the deep-water baptismal truth: that when we know we are God’s and our identity is secure, risk-taking for a better world is possible and can contribute to a new world of shalom, peace. Then the new year is not the old one all over again – for scientists or bankers or any of us. Happy new year!