Resurrection life

Romans 6: 5-11

5 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. ⁶We 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. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The early believers in Jesus took the life, death and resurrection of Jesus personally. They saw themselves modelling His life, His death and His resurrection. The life of Jesus, His service, self-sacrifice, peace-making, advocacy for the poor and the inclusion of the ethnically despised was the life they identified with and tried to emulate. They were activists!  They identified with the death of Jesus; that’s what baptism is all about; as we are plunged below the water we are acting out the death of the old way of life; the life of meeting our needs our own way has been crucified. That life is dead and buried, it’s over! As we come up out of the water we model the resurrection story; we act it out; it’s now our story. Our death is of the old way of life and is a death like Jesus; it’s a pathway to new life and to freedom. The resurrection life is to a life also like Jesus resurrection life. He rose again to be our advocate, to serve us before God His Father. We too are reborn, born from above in order to serve, to advocate for those who do not yet know the liberation story of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. This is the definition of freedom; born from above to serve and advocate for others through living out life as Jesus did. All other ways of life are slaveries. May we take the life, death and resurrection of Jesus personally!