Newness in Death
AM Psalm 89:1-18 • PM Psalm 89:19-52
Jer. 16:10-21 • Rom. 7:1-12 • John 6:1-15
Throughout scripture, death is used as a metaphor to tell us something about change. The visual is intense and unmistakable because we all know that when something dies, a very tangible change takes place. When we lose someone, we feel the absence of their presence. Our feelings change. It impacts us in profound ways—too many mention. So, the change is not just physical, but metaphysical. The change is spiritual and emotional. It affects our minds and hearts and our reality.
In our reading today, Paul tells the Christians in Rome to remember they have experienced a death of sorts. Paul speaks of the death that takes place in every Christian’s life when they put to rest the old life and put on a new life, a life in Christ. Paul emphasizes this fact so much in the New Testament that he even states that he is a new creature. The old Paul is dead and all that remains is something new—the Christ-life inside Paul.
This morning we read that Jeremiah told the people of Israel that the days are coming when people won’t say “As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt…” anymore but will say something new (Jeremiah 16:14). The people will remember or more recent event. They will remember how the Lord restored scattered Israel from the north to their own land (verse 15). In other words, these Israelites were about to experience a change that would impact, motivate, and renew a spirit of faithfulness in their own lives. They were to experience a change that they would call back to for generations.
How has the Christ-life affected you? How has it changed you? Do you call back to it in your daily life? What has passed away and what has become new? Where the loss of someone we love is inexplicably tragic, the death we experience of our old selves is not something to be mourned. Paradoxically it renews.
All of us are constantly being remade in the image of God. In the words of C.S. Lewis, at the end we either say to God, “Thy will be done” or God says to us, “Thy will be done” (The Great Divorce). The impact of our choice cannot be overstated. May the Christ-life spring up in all of us and transform our lives in the light of God.
Written by Jonathan Wright
Jonathan is a native of Atlanta, GA and a relatively new member of St. Paul’s. He moved to the parish from the Cathedral Church of Saint Mark in Salt Lake City, UT where he became an Episcopalian.