How do you normally wake up? Are you slow to rise, or do you wake quickly?

Before kids I used to be a fast waker. I’d wake up early and my mind would be active and buzzing, ready for the day. So, after waking, I’d get up almost immediately and get going. But since kids, I’ve slowed down somewhat. These days I tend to wake up more slowly. My brain is a bit of blur in the morning, so I lie in bed for a while, thinking and praying about the day ahead.

Waking up is something that everybody must do. Everyone — whether young or old, rich or poor, good health or bad health — everyone must wake up each morning. And as we emerge from sleep we all share the same identity. We all wipe gunk from our eyes, we have messy hair and bad breath, we are nothing but ordinary and fragile humans, ready to begin the day.

Author Trish Warren says the following in her book, Liturgy of the Ordinary:

‘Whether we’re children or heads of state, we sit in our pyjamas for a moment, yawning, with messy hair and bad breath, unproductive, groping toward the day. Soon we’ll get buttoned up into our identities: mothers, business people, students, friends, citizens. We’ll spend our day conservative or liberal, … earnest or cynical, fun-loving or serious. But as we first emerge from sleep, we are nothing but human, unimpressive, vulnerable, newly born into the day, blinking as our pupils adjust to light and our brains emerge into consciousness.’ (pg 15).

No matter who we are, in those first waking moments we all share the common human condition.

You are a sinner

King David writes about this human condition and vulnerability in Psalm 51. He writes about who he is, his identity as a human being: ‘Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.’ (Psalm 51:5). We all are sinful, from our first breath, from our first waking moment, each and every day. Here the word ‘sinful’ is perhaps more encompassing than we usually think. ‘Sin’ means not only our wrongdoing and wickedness, but also our guilt, shame, punishment. ‘Sin’ is our broken state before God. That’s why we are sinners before we’re born, as soon as we’ve woken up each day, before we even done anything.

You are mortal

Part of being a sinner means that we are mortal. St Paul says it best: ‘The wages of sin is death.’ (Romans 6:23). The payment for sin is death. How does the old joke go? “There’s only two things certain in life: death and taxes.” Being human means being mortal, being human means that we are dying. We are all in the midst of death. The liturgy for a funeral service clearly states this: ‘We are all born weak and helpless. All lead the same short, troubled life. We grow and wither as quickly as flowers; we disappear like shadows. In the midst of life we are in death. … Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dust we are and to dust we shall return.’ In a moment we’re going to participate in this liturgy as we mark ashes on our forehead.

You are a baptised child of God

Yet, as Christians, this identity being a mortal human in the midst of death is not the only identity we wake up to each morning. King David cries out to God for mercy:

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. …
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
(Psalm 51:1–2, 7)

And because of his Son, Jesus, God listens to our cry for help. In baptism God washes you clean and gives you a new identity. He blots out your wrongdoings. He washes away and cleanses all your sin. And it’s replaced with righteousness. You become a beloved child of God, just as Jesus is a beloved child of God. What an amazing gift!

Remembering your baptism

Yet baptism is not just a historic event. It’s not just something that happened in your past. Baptism is something we remember and live each day! In our baptism we are marked. Trish Warren says it like this: ‘We are marked from our first waking moment by an identity that is given to us by grace: an identity that is deeper and more real than any other identity we will don that day.’ (pg. 19). Coptic Christians in Egypt often receive a tattoo of a cross on their when they are baptised, even if they are just a few months old.

Each day, each morning as you wake, God invites you to remember and relive your baptism. But what does it mean to “remember your baptism”? Remembering our baptism doesn’t merely mean recalling the historic event. It doesn’t just mean looking at a photo of when you were baptised, or pulling out your baptism certificate (though of course this can be part of remembering). Remembering your baptism is remembering that God has marked you as his own. Remembering your baptism means to know who you, whose you are. Remembering your baptism means to be in relationship with Jesus and your adopted heavenly Father, talking, growing, praying with them. Remembering your baptism is to be released from yesterday’s sin and failures, and start fresh each morning. Remembering your baptism means to receive anew each day the gifts God gives to you freely on behalf of Jesus: forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life.

How do you remember your baptism?

Challenge for Lent: remember your baptism each morning when you wake. Think of a way that might help you remember your baptism each morning, first thing. You might like to:

• As soon as you wake up, mark a cross on your forehead as you say silently or aloud, “I am a baptised and beloved child of God.”
• As you rise up out of bed, imagine rising with Jesus from the tomb.
• As you get dressed, picture your sins being taken away and putting on Jesus’ clean robe of righteousness.

As we observe the ‘Imposition of ashes’ in just a moment, may you remember that you are mortal — a human sinner in the midst of death. Yet may you also remember your baptism. You are forever marked by the cross of Christ, and you have the sure promise of resurrection and new life. Amen.

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