Easter Sunday / Cycle A / March 27, 2005

Pastor Gayle M. Highness

Hidden with Christ in God

It was Mother’s Day of 2000. I was in Fargo to visit my mom who was on Hospice care. I knew she would die soon and I knew that whatever I got her for Mother’s Day wouldn’t be of use to her for very long. But I wanted to get her something, so I went to K-Mart and got her a pair of pink slippers – the kind like ballerina shoes, but terry cloth, not satin.

I think she wore them once or twice before she died. I took those slippers home with me afterwards and I found that it gave me comfort to wear them. It was a little like putting on my mom.

So when dad died a couple years later, I found the pajama bottoms and T-shirt I had given him for his birthday -- or maybe it was Father’s Day – a couple of years earlier and I took them home and it gave me comfort to wear them – like I was putting on my dad – connecting with him somehow.

In his letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul says we have died and our lives are hidden with Christ in God.

In Galatians he says something similar: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

In Roman he says to “put on Christ.”

A tradition when a person is baptized, is to put on a white gown – and similarly when a person dies, to place a white pall on the coffin. This is a visible sin of how, in Baptism, we “put on Christ.”

As I thought about what that means -- to put on Christ, or to be hidden in Christ – it reminded me of putting on mom’s slippers or dad’s pajamas, but then I thought, “No, it’s much more than that.”

Because Christ is ALIVE – not dead. So when I put on Christ, I am not just clothing myself in a memory of someone who was once here and is now gone, I am being clothed by a living Christ who was once here and who STILL IS here. And yet, at the same time, is also “above” at the right hand of God in glory.

When I put on my dad’s pajamas, I remember him and it gives me a nice, warm feeling of being loved. How much more real and profound and marvelous is it to remember that, in my baptism, I am wrapped and surrounded and covered by the blood of Christ which washes away all my sin and puts me into a right relationship with God.

Martin Luther’s explanation of Baptism in the small catechism includes another verse from Romans: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

By entering into Christ’s death through faith and repentance, we also share in his resurrection! We exchange our mortal bodies for immortality. We have a new life. We are no longer claimed and bound by death, we are claimed and free in Christ.

When the women went to the tomb looking for Jesus among the dead, they were afraid and the angel said, “Fear not. He is not here. He has risen and he goes ahead of you.”

“Set your mind on things above,” says Paul – not on things below where death reigns.

I thought about this in my life – what is it like setting my mind on things below. Once when I was fretting about something Bill Newton said, “Now it won’t do for the pastor to be wringing her hands.”

That’s what I look like when my mind is set on things below – wringing my hands, stewing about whether something is going to work out or whether I’m doing something right. For me, that’s focusing on things below where problems lie – where I think everything is up to me and I’m not sure I can accomplish all the goals and meet all the expectations.

What is it like for you to be focused on things below? For some people it may be more like striving for material wealth or fame or power. Or being frustrated by human relationships. Or being focused on whatever you don’t have that you want.

When we find ourselves “stuck” in this earthly realm, we need to remember that Christ has risen and we have been raised with him! We are washed and made clean and alive, hidden with Christ in God – with access to the same power that raised Christ from the dead.

Your sins are forgiven. You are a new creation. Go and live lives worthy of your calling.