Focus

Relax and listen. Consciously prepare to hear God’s Word. Clear your mind of the worries and tasks that lie before you. Open your heart and allow it to refresh.

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Read

Romans 6:1-11(NRSV)

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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Reflect

Paul was trying to help his readers, including us, to understand the implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection. When we read these words, we need to remember that the early Christians were trying to understand how their lives were to be transformed by the death and resurrection of Jesus. We understand that sin and death had the upper hand in the world until Jesus came to defeat the power of sin through his resurrection from the dead.

If we define sin as, “anything that separates us from God,” then we recognize that God’s resurrection of Jesus bridges the gap between us and God. Paul said that the death of Jesus was a death to sin, so that his resurrected life is lived to God. When we profess faith in Jesus Christ, we join in his death and resurrection so that we, too, may be dead to sin and alive to God. Though we still live in a sinful and broken world, we do not have to remain there. We can be alive to God because of what Jesus did for us, which is how we have the opportunity to walk in newness of life.

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Pray

Resurrecting and resurrected God, we thank you that Jesus accomplished what we never could have accomplished on our own. Jesus defeated the forces of sin and death in this world when you raised him from the dead. Help us to know that being sealed into the covenant community through the waters of baptism also seals us into this pattern of death and resurrection, which makes possible our new life in you. Keep us ever faithful to this abundant life, made possible by Christ Jesus our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Go with God.