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A JOURNEY TO A NEW LIFE
When we lived in Belleville I served as the chairman for the city for the resettling of the infamous boatpeople who escaped from various communist countries. I was reminded of that when I read a story just recently about a family named Martinez, in Cuba.
Danne and Jorge Martinez wanted to raise their eleven-year-old daughter Lizbet to do right. Unfortunately, they had no choice but to teach Lizbet to lie. You see, the Martinez family lived in Cuba. They were members of Castro's Communist Party. But inside their home, these devoted parents complained bitterly about the political situation that was destroying their country. And so, when Lizbet was old enough to attend school, her parents sat her down and explained the facts of life to her. She was never to publicly criticize the Communist system. She was never to tell anyone what her parents talked about at home. If her teacher said anything that contradicted what her parents taught her, she was to keep her mouth shut. Danne and Jorge loathed the fact that they had to teach their child to lie, but it was necessary for the survival of the family.
Fortunately, Lizbet was an extremely bright child, and she learned her lesson well. Not only was Lizbet bright, she also had an astonishing talent for music. She was chosen to be first violinist of the Havana youth symphony.
It was primarily for Lizbet's sake that Danne and Jorge decided to escape to the United States. They knew that they could never get a visa, so Jorge began swiping inner tubes from a nearby trucking depot. Finally, in August 1994, word came that security along the beaches had been cut back, and it was safer to escape now. Danne and Jorge knew that if they were ever going to go, they would have to go now. They would build a raft out of inner tubes and set out for the States. But this was dangerous, and so Jorge and Danne thought they should consult Lizbet. When Jorge and Danne told Lizbet of their plan, she left the room. She came back with her Bible, her violin, and her asthma inhaler. "I'm ready," she said. ("Bringing the Border War Home" by Glenn Garvin, REASON, Oct. 1995, p.19-20. ) Lizbet was ready to begin this journey to a new life. As I read about Lizbet and her family, I wondered how many people in this world are ready to make a new beginning in their lives.
Not long ago, a very curious incident was reported in the New York City papers. A bus driver in the Bronx simply drove away in his empty bus one day and was picked up by the police several days later in Florida. The driver explained that he had grown tired of driving the same route every day. He had decided to go away on a trip. While he was being brought back, it was clear from the papers that the bus company was having a hard time deciding whether or how he should be punished. By the time he arrived in the Bronx, he was a celebrity, and a crowd of people was on hand to welcome him. When it was announced that the company had foregone its prerogative to turn him over for legal punishment and would give him his job back again if he would promise to make no more jaunts, loud cheers erupted in the Bronx. (A. Dudley Dennison M.D., SHOCK IT TO ME DOCTOR! (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970), p. 30.) Obviously a lot of other people were also bored and unhappy. A lot of other people were looking for a change even if it was only in their imagination. And when they saw someone who did what all of them secretely dreamed- to escape - to make a new beginning ,they applauded that person.
The more people I meet and talk to the more I notice that so many people live in an absolute rut. Day after day the same rut. It seems that for a lot of people it is time for a change .
A lot of people should take the time, examine their lives and then make some wholesome resolutions .For a lot of people it is a time to do something about those areas of our lives with which they are unhappy. I am not the only one who realizes that and that is why the diet industry has become a billion dollar industry.
Kristine Payne in Chattanooga, Tennessee tells about something that happened during the children's sermon at her church. Her pastor was speaking about the ingredients required to make up a church, using a chocolate-chip cookie as an example. He explained to the children that, as with a cookie requiring ingredients such as sugar and eggs, the church needed ingredients to make up the congregation. Holding a cookie aloft, he asked, "If I took the chocolate chips out of this cookie, what would I have?"
A shy six-year-old raised his hand. "Six less grams of fat," he replied. ("Life In These United States," READER'S DIGEST, June 1995. ) My guess is that someone in that young man's family is on a diet.
We make these sometimes futile resolutions, but don't many of us really hope for more? Don't we long for a more radical change? A change that will turn our inner darkness into light? A change that will heal our pain and give us hope once again.
Our Scripture is about the baptism of Jesus.
Matthew 3:13-17
Matthew 3:13-17 MKJV
(13) Then Jesus came from Galilee to Jordan, to John, to be baptized by him.
(14) But John restrained Him, saying, I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?
(15) And answering Jesus said to him, Allow it now, for it is becoming to us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he allowed Him.
(16) And Jesus, when He had been baptized, went up immediately out of the water. And lo, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him.
(17) And lo, a voice from Heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
As Christians we believe that Jesus did not NEED baptism. He had no sins to wash away. He needed no symbol of beginning a new life. He needed no means of grace. BUT HE KNEW THAT WE DO. We need Christian baptism and we need to be reminded of what that baptism means.
FIRST OF ALL, BAPTISM TELLS US THAT NEW LIFE IS POSSIBLE.
In Colossians 2 Paul compares baptism to dying and being resurrected. He writes in verse 12: "having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." Raised to New Life. That is what baptism is all about. Baptism says to us that new life is possible! Some people, I am convinced, simply need that word of reassurance. They need to know that you can begin again. I am amazed at how hopeless some people can get about their lives.
Do you know how the great composer Tchaikovsky died? There is more than one version of the story but according to one reliable source the end of Tchaikovsky's life was determined four days after one of his symphonies received an unfavorable reception in St. Petersburg. The great composer, despondent some said, already feeling ill according to others, deliberately drank a glass of unboiled water in the middle of a cholera epidemic. His friends who witnessed this were appalled. Tchaikovsky told them that he was less afraid of cholera than other illnesses. Cholera, however, did not share his opinion and it soon finished him off. (Dudley Moore, DUDLEY MOORE OFF-BEAT, (NY: Arbor House, 1986), p.166. )
How sad. How tragic. How utterly criminal. One of the world's leading musicians snuffed out by such a fatalistic act. And yet there are people everywhere who are slowly killing themselves because they have grown hopeless about their lives. They may not drink unboiled water but they are killing themselves nonetheless. Unhealthy lifestyles--senseless risk taking--oppressive stress--all because they have lost hope. But here is the good news for the day: Change is possible! Baptism tells us so.
Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, was a millionaire by the age of twenty-nine. As such, he could buy his wife "everything" he thought she possibly could want. But one day he came home to a discover that she had left him.
Millard went after her. He caught up with her on a Saturday night in a hotel in New York City. They talked into the wee hours of the next morning as she poured out her heart and made him see that she wasn't interested in the things he was buying her. Her heart was empty and her spirit was burned out, she explained. She was dead inside and she wanted to live again. Kneeling at their bedside in that hotel room, Millard and Linda made a radical decision. They decided to sell everything they had and dedicate themselves to serving poor people and to working for justice for the oppressed.
The next day being Sunday, they found a church and went there to worship and thank God for their new beginning. They got to church early, hunted up the minister, and told him about what had happened to them and the decision they had made. To their surprise, the minister told them that such a radical decision was not really necessary. "He told us that it was not necessary for us to give up everything," Millard said. "He just didn't understand that we weren't giving up money and the things that money could buy. We were giving up a whole way of life that was killing us." (Tony Campolo, WAKE UP AMERICA!, (Nashville: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 104.)
Millard Fuller and his wife made a real change--a radical change. Baptism reminds us that such change is possible. Dead to the old life--alive to the new. If you truly want to change, you CAN change. But baptism also reminds us of something else.
NEW LIFE IS AVAILABLE ONLY THROUGH A PERSON--AND THAT PERSON IS JESUS CHRIST.
We cannot separate new life from the one who is THE LIFE. People are continually looking for other recipes for change.
Some people tell us all we have to do is change the way we think. Then our problems would be solved. If we could just learn to think positively, they say.
Arne Nilsen, mayor of Sund, Norway, proposed a resolution at a town council meeting. This resolution banned crankiness and required residents to have a positive attitude and be happy. Those with good reason to be sad, such as a broken heart, would be excused. ( John Kohut and Roland Sweet, COUNTDOWN TO THE MILLENNIUM, (New York: A Signet Book, 1994), p. 131. )
Well, Arne may be on to something. A positive attitude can certainly be a big help in life, but if you think positive thinking by itself is enough to get to the core of your problems and your pain, you are in for a rude awakening. You cannot think your way to a new life. Regardless of what the self-help books say, you cannot affirm yourself into becoming a truly new person.
Go with me back to 1915. The First World War was ravaging our planet. Perhaps you remember seeing newsreels with shots of troops cheerfully marching past the cameras while choruses, of "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bags and smile, smile, smile" accompanied them to the front. The song was written by staff sergeant Felix Powell and won him first prize in a competition for the best morale-boosting song.
Sergeant Powell didn't let this early success go to his head. When the next war started Powell stuck it out for three years and then committed suicide. (Dudley Moore, DUDLEY MOORE OFF-BEAT, (NY: Arbor House, 1986), p.142.) Obviously the advice which he himself prescribed to others to "smile, smile, smile," wasn't enough. THE WRITER OF THE SONG POPULAR A FEW YEARS AGO "DONT WORRY, BE HAPPY" COMMITTED SUICIDE AS WELL. Something more than positive thinking is needed. Something more than a sunny "cheer up." What we need is a relationship with a person--the person of Jesus Christ.
Years ago before the "computer dating" craze, there was a newspaper article about an enterprising fellow who had patented a pocket-sized device which he called "The Love Bug." It works like the beepers that doctors carry: you program it with the kind of person you are and the kind of mate you're seeking; whenever you get within range of someone whose Love Bug program matches your specifications--at a party, a singles bar, or a supermarket--the two beepers go off and . . . VOILA! Instant, scientifically certified compatibility. (Gordon Dalbey,HEALING THE MASCULINE SOUL,(Dallas: Word,1988), p.81.)
I don't know what happened to those beepers but I do know that God has placed a spiritual beeper within each of us and our lives will never have the power or the purposefulness that they might have until we are in the presence of the One who can activate that inner beeper. Change is possible, but it only comes through a person--the person of Jesus Christ. That is why we call it CHRISTIAN baptism. We are not simply joining a club. We are entering a relationship.
And that brings us to the last thing to be said:
THERE'S NO BETTER TIME THAN NOW.
This is the day for that life-changing commitment!
There is no greater honor I have had as a pastor than to administer baptism to an adult. Or a youth. Perhaps there is someone reading this who desires Christian baptism. Or perhaps we simply need to be reminded in the quietness of our own heart of the significance of the baptism we have already received.
Let's return to our story about Lizbet and her family fleeing from Castro's Cuba. That night, the Martinez family and ten other people climbed aboard the inner tube raft and set out on the Caribbean. For six days they were out at sea, beaten by the burning sun and the high waves. In the early morning of the sixth day, they were all picked up by a U.S. Coast Guard ship. As Lizbet climbed aboard the ship, she wanted so much to thank these officers for rescuing her family, but she was unable to speak English. So Lizbet took out her violin and began playing a song she had been secretly practicing in her room for so long--"The Star Spangled Banner." For her, America's national anthem was a symbol of her new life of freedom.
But there is a greater symbol of a new life of freedom than The Star Spangled Banner.
It is Christian baptism.
Real change is possible.
It is possible by making a new commitment this day to Jesus Christ.
There's no better time than now.
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