Living A New Life of a Baptized Disciple of Jesus!

It was PERFECT TIMING! On Sunday, December 28, the last Sunday in 2025, Harrison Graber was baptized at Our Redeemer Lutheran in Chugiak!

Most people know that this Wednesday, December 31 is the end of the 2025 calendar year, and that Thursday, January 1, is the beginning of 2026. There are BIG celebrations around the world when New Year’s Day rolls around. I’m sure you know about the ball dropping in Times Square, New York. Other cities and countries have major celebrations as well. The idea is that the pain and suffering and trouble of the past year is over. FINALLY, we get a new start!

Nevertheless, you and I also know that, just because the calendar rolls over, does not necessarily mean that the war in the Ukraine is over. The dawning of 2026 does not stop cancer in those who suffer that dread disease. A new year does not, on its own, heal families. Just because the old year is gone does not mean that former problems are gone from our lives.

But, as I shared in worship on December 28, God gives a new start daily, in our baptisms. God inspired St. Paul to write about the baptized life in Romans 6. Listen to these words about new life from verses 3 and 4. “3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Through baptism we die with Jesus to our sin. (See also Colossians 2:11-12.) He washed away the old and we rise with Christ so that we too “Walk in NEWNESS OF LIFE.”

God does wash away our sin in baptism, through the death of Jesus on the cross. In baptism, He forgives us! God also gives His Holy Spirit in our baptisms. (Acts 2:38-39) As God works and strengthens faith in our baptisms, we live this new forgiven life. Also, because of the grace of God for sinners like us, God changes our hearts so that we want to live for Him. That is why in Romans 6:11 God teaches, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” God takes away the sin of our former transgressions, and makes us new, through faith in Jesus. We begin living that new life in this world. God also promises that, ultimately, we will fully live that new life with Him in heaven.

Martin Luther wrote about the blessings and power of baptism in his Small Catechism. (1529) “What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should DAILY emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” Luther then quotes the Romans 6 verse we also considered.

Baptism is not just a one-time part of our life with God. Through our baptisms, because we are joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection, this new life is a daily blessing, a daily opportunity. We do not have to wait for the turning of a calendar. And, this new life of forgiveness and eternal life for the baptized child of God brings real blessings, not just an “imagined new start.”

I am not surprised that people celebrate the arrival of a new year so passionately. The pain caused by the sin in our lives is something we all want to put behind us. Thankfully, as a child of God I have a new life daily, through my baptism, because Jesus died and rose for me! I live in the promise of a totally new life in heaven. Congratulations, Harrison!