Born Free was the title of a film and song showing the efforts of a British couple in Africa to train a domesticated lion for his return to the wild life. The haunting melody of the song is accompanied by the words: “Born free, as free as the wind blows, as free as the grass grows, born free to follow the heart.”

The prophet Isaiah sang a song about being “Reborn Free.” He also has a lion in his song promising a radically new world: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the calf with the lion; and a little child shall lead them. “The little child is a descendent from Jesse, the line of King David and, in the Christian tradition, the baby Jesus in the manger af Bethlehem.

What is it like being reborn free? A spiritual mountain top experience getting rid of evil (like alcoholism, gambling, sexual deviation, or other sins of a specific culture)? Being born again to a new, moral life? The adherence to specific moral values?

The prophet Isaiah, the apostle Paul and the reformer Martin Luther are models of being born free. Whereas Isaiah speaks of freedom from fear and violence, Paul and Luther talk about Jesus Christ as the source of spiritual harmony and freedom from self-righteousness expressed in the love of others. Paul tells his congregation in Rome: ”Live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus.” Luther speaks of a new life in the shape of a cross: Vertically, living in Christ; horizontally, living in the neighbor, never just by oneself. If one is not reborn free, one is stuck in the tyranny of the ego with the enduring temptation since Adam and Eve—“to be like God (Gen.3:5).

The Gospel for this Sunday speaks of baptism as the event symbolizing the constant struggle of being reborn. We hear John the Baptist preach: “Repent (literally ’change your mind’), for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Baptism is the code word for a daily, intensive spiritual struggle against selfishness and the refusal to change. Luther called it a struggle of being born again every day. As he put it in The Small Catechism: “Baptism signifies that the old creature in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily contrition and repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

The ritual of baptism describes the steps of being reborn. First, renouncing evil (“Do you renounce all the forces of evil?”). Second, belonging to a community of faith (“Do you believe in the God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit?”); and finally, relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, even if suffering is involved (“You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever”).

So what is it like being reborn free? It is a life of discipline, of spiritual formation, designed to survive in this world for a new world to come. The mind must be focused on this world, not the next! Speculations about the end-time, or whether one is “left behind”, are useless and unfaithful. The mind must be used to detect evil, to renounce it and to seek the best way to survive it. That is why Jesus commanded his disciples to be wiser than sheep among wolves. He told them, “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves”’ (Matt. 10:16). In the Bible, the serpent is first a symbol of temptation in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3). Then the serpent becomes a symbol of healing—the bronze serpent saving the people of Israel from poisonous snakes (Num. 21:9). Finally, the serpent is Jesus who heals forever (John 3:14-15). Today, the serpent is the logo of medicine, curled around a staff. But healing is based on a sharp diagnosis of what is wrong and diseased; without a diagnosis there is no prognosis.

Example: A teacher was unable to teach because of fear. He consulted a psychiatrist who, after a lengthy analysis, offered the diagnosis, “You have an inferiority complex that paralyzes you in the classroom. Find another occupation.” The teacher was advised by a good friend to get another expert opinion. So he went to another psychiatrist who, after a lengthy analysis, offered the diagnosis, “You do not have an inferiority complex. You are inferior.” Now the teacher could teach again, though not as well as many others, but well enough to make a living. He was weak, but not paralyzed.

We are to use our minds to survive, yet without loosing our child-like faith—being “innocent as doves.” But one cannot just be only a dove. Doves in love sit on roofs and coo. They get easily killed by hunters who know that when doves make love they are an easy target. That is why we need solid education about how to survive, as well as joyfully worship as children of the Holy Spirit. The pulpit and the classroom should make us good diagnosticians of evil and practitioners of justice. The altar should make us joyous and spiritually refreshed in prayer and in the Lord’s Supper.

Martin Luther cherished his baptism because it reminded him daily that life in this world was a struggle with evil—the experience that something can always go wrong and probably will—we call it Murphy’s law (named after the engineer Edward Murphy (1917-). Baptism promises a future with God through Christ.

One need not make any great spiritual effort to be born again, like penitential withdrawal from the world or joining a revival movement. One should just face the problems of this world. They are so threatening that one is forced to change directions, indeed run. One retreats in order to be trained to face evil in a cold-blooded, serpentine way—like a trained physician: diagnose the danger like a disease, prevent it from spreading, and attempt the best possible treatment. One may end up without a cure and die. But one has done what was possible. “Operation successful, patient died”—as a satirical surgeon put it.

Luther learned from the Bible that life is an interim, a mean time between birth and death, indeed between the first and second coming of Jesus. He had to learn to survive the mean meantime with serpentine wisdom and dove-like innocence. So Luther faced the evils of his time, especially in the church. He diagnosed and treated them as best as he could; and he clung to the promise of God in word and sacrament that a new creation will supplant the old, without evil, sin and death. So he used his mind, like a good doctor of theology, to diagnose and heal the church; and he developed a gallows humor to survive with word, sacrament and prayer. Thus he was able to laugh at the devil and tell him to scare himself.

Looking at the world of politics, Luther said that self-righteous rulers often behave like donkeys who try to play a harp. There is much foolishness and nonsense in the world because wherever there is a true church, the devil builds a chapel next door. But evil will not succeed in the end; the second advent of Christ will bring victory over sin, evil and death. We are reborn free because faith in Christ frees us from ourselves and binds us to our neighbor. For faith is not a personal possession, like a house or a car; it is a shared commodity. When my faith is weak, or even lost, I borrow it from another believer. Christ is my “master card,” as it were! We are born free from ourselves, born again and again in meeting Christ in our neighbor who needs us. But the price of such freedom is eternal vigilance against evil.

When I was young and living in my native Austria, I competed in bicycle racing. Training was hard, often 50 miles per day in all kinds of weather. First, I hated the burning sun or the biting rain on my racing outfit which did not protect me from the heat, the cold, or heavy rain. I pedaled, cursed and continued for the sake of staying in condition. But sometimes, a thunderstorm would drench me in nice cool water after hours in the burning sun. I felt like being born again—free to finish the run.

Isaiah, Paul and Luther experienced the freedom from the tyranny of the self, climaxing in the temptation of Adam and Eve “to be like God” (Gen. 3:5). They lived and died as true freedom fighters against the sin of idolatry—playing God, the pastime of humanity. We must do the same: develop the stamina to endure the trek of life; and keep going, refreshed by the cool water of baptism, reborn free for a never-ending future with God. To paraphrase the song from the movie “Born Free”—“Reborn free in the wind of God’s Spirit, as free as we will ever be, reborn free in the renewal of our heart.”

Amen.