Do You Walk in White?

I'm not sure I agree with Oswald today. I'm not sure that he has accurately interpreted the Scripture passage. I know that I cannot hearken back to a "white funeral" or a "last day." Neither can I hearken back to a specific day of conversion, my second "birthday" as it used to be emphasized. I grew up in a Christian home. I know not when God gave me a new heart. I have grown gradually in my faith, and I cannot point to a beginning when the seed was planted and began to sprout. I daresay my children would be in the same position. I have a covenant view of Scripture and baptism: we mark our children through the sacrament, and we assume that they are a part of the family of God. I know Jesus said that you must be born again, but I'm not sure you have to know when that happened. Likewise, I cannot see the necessity of recalling a specific day, as Oswald suggests, when I made an agreement with God.

Secondly, Oswald seems to be advocating a sort of second baptism or second death, apart from our original identification in Christ's death at the point of salvation, and I really do not see that in today's verse: "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life," Romans 6:4. When we accept his payment on the cross for our sins, then we have died with him, and the sanctification -- "the newness of life" -- begins. We don't have to do anything extra.

On the positive side, I think Oswald asks a legitimate question: "Do you agree with God that you stop being the striving, earnest kind of Christian you have been?" I'm still thinking about what this means. I am a striving, earnest kind of Christian. I tend to be a bit pharisaic in my approach to life. I would like to stop, but the way out isn't always clear.

I see parallels between Oswald's "white funeral" and the concept of a "living sacrifice," but whereas a funeral is a one-time event, the living sacrifice strikes me as being moment by moment.

Barbara