By Cindy Koch –

I’m ashamed for her. I mean, there she is, acting like a fool again. She had every chance to turn her life around. Since her new life, she now knows what God really wants for her. She was almost over the mountain of her painful past. She was on her way out of the suffering. But once again, she passed up the good decisions and chose the ones that would lead her down the harder path.

There she is. And the Heavenly Father knows every terrible thing she has done. He is ready to hold every sinner to account, to make her pay for the life she should have lived. He does not short change His justice, and she has failed again. God required her obedience. This is an expected part of the relationship. He has no patience for those who can’t live up to His Law.

But there she is, a baptized child of God, drowned in the water, crucified with Christ to this life of sin. There she is, made new, alive only because of the resurrection of Christ. There she is, a new creation, given the good works that God has already prepared for her, born into sin yet raised into a lifetime of blessing, formerly bound to the devil but now victorious over every evil.

So, what happened with her? Why does she live the life of a fool? Did this new life in Christ just not take? Maybe the Baptism wasn’t good enough. Maybe she didn’t believe enough to make it work. Maybe she was never a Christian in the first place. Maybe she should try the Baptism all over again. Maybe she should just give up on the whole thing.

God looks down, and there she is. But sitting on His omnipotent throne on high, God can’t see this fool. He is not even looking at her. God only sees His Son. Baptized into Christ, she is covered with the work of Another. Baptized into Christ, this fool is hidden inside the perfect Child of God. Baptized into Christ, she is not a fool, even when I see her in the mirror acting like one.

There she is, a baptized child of God, drowned in the water, crucified with Christ to this life of sin. There she is, made new, alive only because of the resurrection of Christ. There she is, new creation, given the good works that God has already prepared for her, born into sin yet raised into a lifetime of blessing, formerly bound to the devil but now victorious over every evil.

There she is, promised from a bloody cross and deadly font that she is not a fool, captured against her foolish will by an ever-judging God and an ever-faithful Savior, reminded by her every foolish step that He never stops forgiving. She is baptized.