The bones of the faithful had gathered dust for years under the altar of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick, Ireland. They only came to the light of day as the church was restored.

Many of the skeletons we saw being exposed by archeologists showed signs of violent death from Viking axes or English swords. They had died in fear. But they had been buried in faith. They were buried under the altar as a sign of hope in the resurrection to eternal life.

Now my bones are still up on top inside my skin. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been buried. I have been. That’s what Paul tells me in Colossians 2:11-12. He says that I was buried with Christ when I was baptized. So were you when you were baptized. That’s what Paul tells us in verse 12.

You may have thought you just got wet when you were baptized. But God says no - it’s much more than that. When you were baptized or when, by faith you claimed the baptismal promises made on your behalf as a child, you actually participated in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. This is the message we are going to explore today.

A pastor friend of mine tells how he went to serve a new congregation. After his first Sunday, an older man shook his hand and said; “Now I know who is going to do my funeral.”

That might or might not be true. Some old folks live longer than some pastors stay at churches. But if I baptized you, I’ve already done your most important funeral. You’ve already died your most important death. You died to Christ.

You have also been raised with Him. Our resurrection is already an accomplished fact. Yes, there will be a time of transition called death, but that is only a door from one state of eternity to another.

If you’ve read C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, you remember that because of some type of flux in the time-space continuum, the children from earth who come to Narnia stay children while the Narnian’s live full lives, grow old and die. In the book Prince Caspian, the children return to Narnia only to discover that their dear friend Caspian, whom they had known as a strong, young prince, is now old and dying.

The children observe the funeral. Then the great lion Aslan who is the image of Jesus in the Chronicles take the children to another place, which seems to somehow parallel this physical world. Lewis writes: “Then they saw that they were once more on the Mountain of Aslan, high up above and beyond the end of that world in which Narnia lies. But the strange thing was that the funeral music for King Caspian still went on, though no one could tell where it came from. They were walking beside the stream and the Lion went before them: and he became so beautiful, and the music so despairing, that Jill did not know which of them it was that filled her eyes with tears.

“Then Aslan stopped, and the children looked into the stream. And there, on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay King Caspian, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water weed. And all three stood and wept. Even the Lion wept: great Lion-tears, each tear more precious than the Earth would be if it was a single solid diamond.

"Son of Adam, said Aslan, "go into that thicket and pluck the thorn that you will find there, and bring it to me”.

Eustace obeyed. The thorn was a foot long and sharp as a rapier.

"Drive it into my paw,” Son of Adam, said Aslan, holding up his right fore-paw and spreading out the great pad toward Eustace.

"Must I?” said Eustace.

"Yes, said Aslan.

Then Eustace set his teeth and drove the thorn into the Lion's pad. And there came out a great drop of blood, redder than all the redness that you have ever seen or imagined. And it splashed into the stream over the dead body of the King. At the same moment the doleful music stopped. And the dead King began to be changed. His white beard turned to gray, and from gray to yellow, and got shorter and vanished altogether; and his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped up and stood before them - a very young man. And he rushed to Aslan and flung his arms as far as they would go round the huge neck; and he gave Aslan the strong kisses of a King, and Aslan gave him the wild kisses of a Lion.

At last Caspian turned to the others. He gave a great laugh of astonished joy. "Why! Eustace!” he said. "Eustace! So you did reach the end of the world after all. What about my second-best sword that you broke on the sea serpent?“

Eustace made a step toward him with both hands held out, but then drew back with a startled expression.

"Look here! I say,” he stammered. "It's all very well. But aren't you-? I mean didn't you-“

"Oh, don't be such an ass,” said Caspian.

"But,” said Eustace, looking at Aslan. "Hasn't he-er-died?”

"Yes,” said the Lion in a very quiet voice, almost (Jill thought) as if he were laughing. "He has died. Most people have, you know. Even I have. There are very few who haven't.”

“Almost as if Aslan were laughing.” Lewis’ gently makes the point that we think of our physical death as a barrier – as something decisive. But God sees it differently. And through our baptisms, God invites us to understand our life and death from His point of view – just as Aslan does with Jill and Eustace.

This is a reorientation I find that I need. I need it now more than ever before.

Most of you know that my mother is now in a rest home. She fell in late January and had surgery to remove a sub dermal hematoma. The result was instant late-stage Alzheimer’s.

I have appreciated the strong support from this congregation through this experience. You know how to support your brothers and sisters in Christ including me. But it has been hard. My mom had such life and vitality. She had such a strong walk with God. She taught me, prayed for me and encouraged me. It’s hard to see her so reduced.

I know that some day a kind nurse will call the family and will tell us that we need to “prepare ourselves for the worst.” But I want to tell you right now that it won’t be the worst we’ll be preparing for. It will be the best – our Mom going home to be with her Lord. What’s going on right now when my Mom is neither “here nor there” is the worst.

This doesn’t mean that I won’t grieve. I will. But I’ll know that my mom was already raised through her faith in “Him who raised Jesus from the dead." Her eternal life has already begun. As a Christian, this life here with stresses and pain is the only hell you'll ever know. For others, this is the only heaven they’ll ever know.

Baptism by itself doesn’t save anyone. The goal is personal faith. Every baptized child reaches a point where he or she must confirm the promises made on his or her behalf through a personal response of faith. .” Baptism is not a magic rite. It is an act of obedience in which we confess our faith. The key, as Paul says, is not the baptism. It is the faith the baptism points to – the resurrecting “faith in the power of God.”

For baptism not only proclaims that the old life is over and done with. It also declares that a new order has begun. The convert does not remain in the baptismal water. He or she emerges from it to begin a new life. This is what Paul is talking about in verse 11 in his mysterious references to circumcision.

We need to understand what Paul is talking about here. Some of the false teachers in Colossae want to follow the Jewish law. And since the law says that circumcision is the sign of being a part of God’s covenant people, they insist that the Gentiles who are coming to faith in Colossae must be circumcised.

Paul says that’s not needed. He writes in verse 11, “In Him (Jesus) you also (along with Jesus) were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands.” You don’t need a circumcision of the body because in Jesus you’ve already received the more important circumcision -- the removal of the body of flesh.

Now Paul even a Jewish Rabbi, knew all about circumcision. He knew even then that it is not an issue of skin. It was an issue of the heart. The great spiritual leaders of Israel and the great prophets had always insisted that circumcision was only the outward mark of a person who was inwardly dedicated to God. They talked of uncircumcised lips, of a circumcised heart and the uncircumcised ear. Being circumcised does not mean having a certain operation carried out on a the flesh but having a change that takes place in life.

That was the answer of the prophets’ centuries before. And that is still Paul's answer to the false teachers in Colossae. He says to them, "You demand circumcision. But you must remember that circumcision does not mean simply the removal of the foreskin from a man's body. It means putting off every part of the human nature which sets us against God.

Only Christ can bring about this spiritual circumcision. And that very act Paul says in verse 12, has already happened to you in baptism.

Now when Paul talks about the removal of the “body of flesh” is verse 11, he isn’t talking about some empty theory. He hasn’t just come up with a metaphor. He says that our baptismal circumcision has real consequences.

The first practical result is the one Paul focuses on here in Colossians. Paul says in Colossians 2 that dying with Christ means that we are set free from petty human rules and laws.

Down in verse 20 he writes, “If then, you have died with Christ, why, as if you were alive in the world do you submit yourself to human rules like ‘do not handle, do not taste, so not touch.’” We are going to talk about this in detail.

But this morning I want to focus on the other tangible result of dying and rising with Jesus. This is the other part of our freedom. This is the aspect Paul emphasizes in Romans 6, which is the other passage we read this morning. This second half of our liberation is the half I want to focus on today.

Paul writes beginning in Romans 6:3 that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death. It’s the same teaching as in Colossians 2. But the application here in Romans 6 is different. Paul says that in baptism we are liberated from but we are also liberated to. Paul writes in Romans 6 that because we have now died to our old nature, that we now actually have the ability, as a response of love and gratitude, to live in ways that please God.

In Romans 6:11, we are told to count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God. And we can do this because we know that God is alive to us. He shows us this in Jesus. As we will see in Colossians 2, we are free from legalism. But we are not free from obedience. We just approach obedience in a liberating way. It is not an obedience of outward forms but a glad obedience of the heart.

Charles Swindoll writes: “I remember when I prepared to get my license to drive. My father calmly sat alongside me in the front seat, giving me tips, helping me know what to do. My grandfather was the best of all. When I would drive his car I would hit things. He would say things like: "Just keep going, Bud, I can buy more fenders but I can't buy more grandsons. You're learning.”

The day Swindoll got his license, his dad tossed him the keys to his car and said, “tell you what son -- you can have the keys to the car for two hours, all on your own.”

Swindoll writes: “My pulse rate must have shot up to 180 as I backed out of the driveway and roared off. While cruising along "all on my own”, I began to think wild stuff -- like, this car can probably go 100 miles an hour. I could go to Galveston and back twice in two hours if I averaged 100 miles per hour. I can fly down the gulf freeway and even run a few lights. After all, nobody's here to say, ‘don't.’ We're talking dangerous, thoughts!

"But you know what?,” Swindoll asks, “I didn’t do any of them. "Why? My relationship with my dad and granddad was so strong that I couldn't. Over a period of time there had developed a sense of trust, a deep love relationship that held me in restraint.”

That's what obedience from the heart feels like. It is obedience but it’s obedience that is natural and healthy because it grows out of a relationship that is healthy. It’s not rule based but heart based. There is a huge difference.

In John 8 Jesus speaks about slavery and freedom and makes a great offer. He says: "Every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. And the slave does not remain in the house forever; but the son does remain forever. If, therefore, the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.'

When Jesus sets us free, he sets us free "from.” He sets us free from the compulsion to try to please God by keeping rules -- from trying to achieve a righteousness before God based on our own good deeds. Paul will talk about this in Colossians.

Jesus also sets us free from living without a purpose -- the gnawing sense that all of our actions, whether good or bad, will be swallowed up in time and will make no difference fifty years after our deaths. He sets us free because we know that those things we do for Christ and His kingdom will last for eternity.

Jesus, finally, sets us free from the "rat-race” -- the need to constantly prove our worth by the things we can do and how much we can accomplish. Can you still feel good about yourself and your worth as a person after you've completely messed up and all your efforts are turning out to be failures? Is your only solace a bottle or some pills to dull the ache of defeat? If so, you need Christ to set you free from the treadmill. The rat race is for rats but we are called to be children of God and joint-heirs with Christ himself.

Jesus sets us free "from”. But it is equally important that Jesus sets us free "to.” He frees us to live in ways which are contrary to the usual pattern of human life.

Many people define freedom as freedom from having to take responsibility -- the freedom to leave an uncomfortable situation as soon as it becomes inconvenient or limiting to remain. I talked about this on July 4. But Jesus calls us not to the quest for sensual pleasure but to self-denial, for the sake of joy. Jesus does not call us to self-denial for its own sake. He calls us to self-denial for the sake of that abundant life -- that joy in relationship and service -- which anarchy in personal pleasure can never produce. All this is part of the meaning of our baptism.

In the sixth chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul tells us that we "have died in sin.” That is an important part of our freedom. But an equally important part of our freedom is that we are called to "live to Christ.” We cannot be left empty. What was taken away in our death to sin must be filled with the rebirth to righteousness. Jesus said that the one whom the Son sets free is indeed free -- and that true freedom is to be found through the path of discipleship in faith. “If you obey my word, you are truly my disciples – and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”