And He kills and raises in Christ all whom He calls His sons and daughters. In Baptism you died and were buried in the death and burial of Jesus. You were joined to Jesus in His death with the promise of rising with Him in His life. Baptism is the means by which we die and rise with Jesus. Death and resurrection is the way through which we lose our lives in order to find them in Jesus.
Baptism means death to self, death to sin, death to death itself.
It means freedom, for those who have died have been set free, they are no longer slaves to sin. Sin no longer reigns over you, but now Christ reigns over your sin, lording His cross and resurrection over you, so that daily your sin is buried in His death and daily you rise to new life in His life. In Baptism you are given to think of yourself in a new way, to repent, to change your mind about who and what you are. Once you thought of yourself as sinful, unworthy of Christ, unworthy to be called His disciples, unworthy to bear His name and His Word. But Baptism gives you divine permission to count yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, to see yourself not in light of who you are and what you have done but in light of who Christ is and what He has done for you.