"How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 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....So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus."

My mother is a huge fan of cowboy shows—Bonanza, Gun Smoke, and The Rifle Man. As a boy, I would occasionally sit with my mother and watch the cowboy shows. I soon discovered that the characterization and underlying plot structure in these shows seemed to remain fairly constant.

On the one hand, there were the law-abiding citizens of Dodge, and the chief protector of Dodge was the sheriff or the United States marshal. On the other hand, there was the law-breaking bank robber. In the "moral universe" of the cowboy show, there were few shades of gray. Things were black and white, cut and dry. The sheriff was clean-shaven and rode a white horse. The bank robber had a scraggily beard and rode a black horse. On the one side, you had the Lone Ranger, and on the other, you had Jesse James or Billy the Kid.

And, of course, the plot structure was utterly predictable. The bad guy robs the bank and runs from the law. The robber shoots and pillages, leading the law on a wild chase through the wild, wild west. This chase might continue for three-fourths of the movie, but when the deal came down, the sheriff always apprehended his man. We knew that he would. The question was: how would he catch him?

As the fugitive cowboy led the sheriff on a wild chase, the sheriff would put posters up all over the countryside. The poster would have a picture of the fugitive, and underneath the picture in big bold letters would be the words: Wanted Dead or Alive.

The poster suggested that this bad cowboy was such a menace to society he had to be stopped. If stopping him meant killing him, that was acceptable and within the confines of the law. The criminal was wanted dead or alive. In other words, by any means necessary, we want him. Dead or alive. Put him in jail or put him in a casket, we don’t care. We just want this criminal. We want him dead or alive.

Now the two letters "o" and "r" between "Dead or Alive" create a coordinating conjunction that introduces an alternative possibility. Dear or alive. There are two alternatives. No middle ground. It has to be one way or the other. The conjunction "or" means that if you choose one alternative, you automatically refuse the other. If you bring him in dead, he is not alive. If you bring him in alive, he is not dead. The sheriff did not care which mutually exclusive option you chose. He just wanted the criminal apprehended. Dead or alive is how the sheriff wanted the bad cowboy in those old movies.

But according to Romans 6, God wants the Christian dead and alive. The sheriff wants the criminal dead or alive, but the Savior wants the Christian dead and alive.

In Romans 6:11, Paul declares, "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ." Some translations have, "dead but alive." Yet, I believe the New Revised Standard Version has the better theological nuance when it translates the phrase, "dead and alive." In the life of the Christian, death and life are supposed to happen at the same time. "We must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ."

Romans 6:1-11 is a wanted poster. It is an advertisement from God to capture not criminals, but Christians who are ready and willing to live out the ethical implications of life in Christ. The Savior wants us dead and alive.

But how can this be? Life is the antithesis to death. Dead and alive is a nonsensical statement; it’s oxymoronic. Dead and alive? That’s two contradictory ideas trying to occupy the same semantic space.

In Romans, Paul demonstrates that everybody is under the power of Sin. Yet, generally in Romans, when Paul mentions Sin, he is not talking so much about sin as an individual act of disobedience or bad behavior. He is talking about Sin as a cosmic power.

In other words, he is talking about Sin with a capital "S." Sin, as a cosmic force, is a tyrant that rules over the believer like a despotic monarch. Sin with a capital "S" is what creates sin with a little "s."

In Romans, Paul declares that there is a dark side in the world. Everyone has experienced the dark side. It whispers in your ear and tells you to lie to your spouse. It’s that internal voice that makes you jealous when God blesses other people in a different and seemingly better way than God blesses you. It’s that voice that tells you that you are not gossiping when you talk about other people’s business; you are just keeping your friends "informed." There is a dark side out there, and Paul calls it Sin.

Unfortunately, Sin has left its mark on every life. Sin’s signature is death. But the Good News of Romans is that there is a way to break the curse of Sin, and ironically, it is through death.

In other words, we must fight fire with fire. Sin rules over us like a tyrant, and it brings death. The only way to break free from the death of sin is through death— dying not in the natural realm, but in the spiritual realm. Dying in the spiritual realm for Paul is represented by baptism. Baptism is a powerful symbol of dying to Sin. Romans 6 is Paul’s reflection on the ethical implications of baptism. Baptism equals death.

Listen to Paul in Romans 6:3: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" In Romans 6, Paul reminds his hearers of the significance of their baptism.

To be baptized by the Spirit into fellowship with Christ is like a spiritual Fourth of July. Baptism into Christ is Independence Day. Baptism into Christ is understood as that moment when we break free from the hostile power of Sin, no longer being held captive by its seductive power.

Paul says that after we have been buried with Christ by baptism into his death, we are dead to Sin. Now, I want to be crystal clear on a point. To be dead to Sin does not mean that we never again transgress. It should, however, mean that we will not be dominated by Sin. As long as we are in the flesh, we are prone to making mistakes— mistakes for which we can sincerely seek pardon. However, once we have been baptized into Christ, Sin no longer should have dominion over us. Sin should no longer rule over us because now we have divinely-bestowed authority.

As we mature in Christ, stumbling blocks after a while should start becoming stepping stones for us to move up in Christ. But in order for this to happen, we must be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. As Paul says in verse 4, when we are alive to God in Christ, we will walk in the newness of life. When we are dead and alive, there ought to be a newness about us. The African American saints of my childhood used to testify that after they met Jesus, "They looked at their hands, and their hands looked new. They looked at their feet, and they did, too."

Christians who are dead to Sin and alive to Christ don’t do the same old stuff; don’t talk the same old junk; don’t think the same old ungodly thoughts. When we are dead to sin and alive to Christ, we should start singing a new theme song: "What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought, since Jesus came into my heart."

When we are dead and alive, transformations are bound to occur. When we are dead and alive, we are ever reminded that the chief goal of the Holy Spirit is not excitement but transformation. When we are dead and alive, something on the inside starts working on the outside, and there will be a change in our lives.

If we take seriously Paul’s words in Romans 6, every day there should be a funeral in the life of the Christian. None of us have been completely conformed to the image of God, but every day, we ought to lay to rest something that is not like God, which hinders us from having a closer walk with God.

What do you need to lay to rest today? What do you need to bury today? A bad attitude, jealousy, animosity, an unforgiving spirit, doubt, feelings of shame, or inadequacy. If there is something that is prohibiting your spiritual growth, I dare you to look it squarely in the eye and say, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Rest in peace."

At the same time that we are burying the negative, we ought to celebrate the glorious resurrection of the positive things of Christ Jesus in us. In Christ, funerals are always penultimate. Death is but a comma in salvation’s story. The resurrection is the final exclamation point.

Through the power of the resurrection, I am ever alive to God and to my neighbor. Because of the resurrection, Paul tells me in Romans 12 that I am a living sacrifice. Sacrifices are normally dead, and in the sense that we have been crucified with Christ, we are a sacrifice. Yet, we are not dead sacrifices, we are living sacrifices. Dead and alive.

This nonsensical stuff of being dead and alive is not just in Romans; its echoes are elsewhere in scripture. In Galatians, Paul declares, "I am crucified with Christ; yet, it is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me."

I am dead and alive. Dead to Sin and alive in Christ. Thank God that the resurrected Christ lives in me. Christ Lives! "He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way. He lives, He lives, salvation to impart. You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart." Amen.

Interview with Brad Braxton
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot:  A wonderful message on baptism.

Brad Braxton: Thank you.

Talbot: I must ask you, Brad, to take us back to your own baptism while growing up in your father’s church in Salem, Virginia.

Braxton: I was seven years old when I was baptized in a marvelous little Baptist church in Salem, Virginia, the First Baptist Church in Salem. And the baptistry was underneath the pulpit, so they had to pull up the floor. And I will never forget going down in that very chilly water. I am reminded sometimes of that old spiritual, "the Jordan River is chilly and cold." And the water that day was quite chilly. But I will remember the sense of my father, who is my pastor, saying that, "Before God and the angels, we baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." I had a sense that we were being surrounded by something very awesome and divine.

Talbot: And you refer to the African American saints of your childhood. Tell us about them.

Braxton: One of the things that I always tell my students about when I teach is that there were many people in that congregation who may not have had an advanced education, but they had Ph.D.s in mother wit. I will never forget all of the wisdom that they poured into me. And in particular, one thing that they taught me was that I should never get educated away from my people. That my advanced education should always be put in service of greater liberation for our people.

Talbot: You still see their faces and hear their names?

Braxton: Yes, I do.

Talbot: Your new book, No Longer Slaves, was really part of your thesis for your masters work at Oxford. Tell us about the book.

Braxton: I had quite an epiphany. During the time I was at Oxford I went to West Africa and I was reading the Greek text of Galatians. Paul said, "And you are no longer slaves." It hit me that many African Americans are still bound in a kind of ideological slavery. We’ve been free from chattel slavery for so long, but we are still tied in so many ways that continue to enslave us and hold us down. What would it look like if we had a "ideological emancipation proclamation" and claimed our great heritage and lived out of that heritage?

Talbot: And so that connection with what you say in your earlier sermon, equating a baptism

with the Fourth of July experience, an Independence Day.

Braxton: That’s exactly right. I do believe that African Americans, as we move into this new millennium, need to have another kind of Independence Day if we are going to rise up and be the people that I believe God wants us to be.

Talbot: Well, thank you. You are a gift to us all, Dr. Brad Braxton.