• "What Does it Mean to Be a Christian?"
• Sermon for Easter Day
• April 11, 2004
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

People generally misunderstand what it means to be a Christian. Some people think that to be a Christian means primarily to believe certain things. Some people think that to be a Christian means primarily to do good things. But Christianity is not primarily doctrine or good works. It is, primarily, an experience. To be a Christian is to be a participant in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Colossians says, we were "buried with [Christ] in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith" (2:12 NKJV). This experience changes our life's story.

Mary Magdalene came to the tomb at dawn, sad and without hope. Jesus had changed her troubled life and given her hope, but hope had been dashed on the cross. Jesus was dead and all she could do was honor the body with pious burial customs and return, with new wounds, to life as it was before.

This is the story of fallen humanity. We hope that something will make life all that it can be. Sometimes the hope is rooted in a political or religious leader or movement; sometimes in career aspirations; sometimes in relationships; sometimes in plans for travel or adventure; sometimes in programs of self-improvement.

But in this fallen world nothing ever quite lives up to the hope. The movement fails. The career stalls. Or it succeeds and success doesn't quite feel like we thought it would. The relationship disappoints us, the adventure ends. We want things to be new and different, but we cannot seem to rise above the limitations of our fallen natures. And then there is sickness, misfortune and, finally, death. Death always looms out in the future as the eventual crusher of our hopes.

The story changes when Magdalene finds the tomb empty, sees an angel and then, sees Jesus himself. Jesus is alive. He has conquered death. The cycle of sin and death, the cycle of futility, which is the theme of life in this fallen world, had been replaced with the new theme of death and resurrection. As Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25-6).

Now, many people have a hope for life after death that is based on something other than the death and resurrection of Jesus. But, a close examination of these hopes reveals that they are quite different than the Christian hope of resurrection. They are based on individual experiences and opinions that can be neither confirmed nor relied on. If you ask people to explain the basis of their hope, they will say, "It's just what I believe." In other words, "I made it up myself."

The resurrection hope that we have in Christ is sure and certain. Jesus came in fulfillment of prophesy. He died a real, historical death on the cross. His resurrection is attested to by many witnesses. His death provides real atonement of our sins. His resurrection provides a real gift of new life. This hope is not something we have invented. This is God's real answer to the human condition.

We share in his resurrection through baptism. Baptism is a sacrament. It is an outward sign of an inward grace. It is the historical, verifiable moment when our lives are linked with Good Friday and Easter. The outward sign in baptism is water. The inward grace is "a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness" (BCP 292). We die with Christ to a former way of life-the life of futility in a fallen world-and we rise with Christ to new resurrected life.

This experience of resurrection changes the story of our lives and transforms every aspect of life in this world. Our sins become the opportunity for Christ to forgive. Our wounds become the opportunity for Christ to heal. Our disappointments become the opportunity for Christ to purify our motives, develop virtue and raise our sights. Our failures and defeats in the world become, like Good Friday, the raw material for new resurrection life. As St. Paul says in one of the great passages of the New Testament, Romans 8:

"If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword... 'No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us'" (RSV).

Beyond this life, we have the hope of the resurrection of the body. As 1 Corinthians says, "The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed" (15:52).

The main problem most Christians have is forgetfulness. They forget that they died and rose with Christ in baptism. They forget that their sins are forgiven. They forget that their destiny is to live forever in glory with Christ in the communion of the saints. Forgetting who they are, they live out life according to the old patterns of fallen man. Things that they should conquer through faith are, instead, allowed to conquer them.

This is why we renew baptismal vows on Easter Day. We need to remember that we were buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him through faith. This experience of resurrection is the essence of what it means to be a Christian. Right doctrine is merely the right details of the story. New behavior is merely the fruit of the resurrection. The heart and soul of Christian faith is dying and rising with Christ.

Easter is an annual opportunity to remember that Christ is risen and the hope of resurrection lives in us through the baptismal gift. Easter is the annual opportunity to stir up the gift of resurrection life that God has given us. As Ephesians says, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (5:14 KJV).