The following is a reprint from the Grace Notes of April 2012 and was authored by
The Reverend Charles Froh, Grace Lutheran Church, Pastor Emeritus.
Dying and Rising
You have probably heard me use the expression many times that ‘the Christian Life is one of daily dying and rising.’ That is, the Christian daily dies to sin, and daily rises to live a new life before God. Such a life is called a life of repentance.
During the season of Lent, the people of God recall that their sin is the reason Christ had to suffer and die as mankind’s substitute. For this reason the season bears a somewhat subdued tone. Sin has that affect on the sinner.
As the weeks of lent move into Palm Sunday, the Church of Jesus Christ is prepared, through the Word and the Spirit, to see once again the suffering and death of Christ for sinners. All sinners! His death for me!
The Church does not merely remember His suffering and death on the cross, but eagerly anticipates the opportunity to rejoice in His resurrection! The month of April is a glorious month, for not only is Holy Week observed, but so also is the great high festival of the Resurrection of the Lord!
It is the Resurrection of Jesus that is the Father’s guarantee that His work was sufficient to redeem all people from the ravages of sin and from eternal death!
Fortunately, the people of God need not enter Holy Week without the knowledge of the resurrection! No indeed! God’s people may rejoice even in the midst of Holy Week as we recall the love that caused Him to take our place under the wrath of the Father toward sin.
But the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus have an even greater impact for the children of God. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans Chapter Six: “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (NKJ)
Because you have been united to Christ’s death in your baptism, you also die to sin. Because you have been united to the resurrection of Christ in your baptism, you also share in His resurrection!
This sharing in His resurrection is many faceted! You not only are gifted with the forgiveness of sin in His death, or as a result of His death, but you are also given the promise of the resurrection, as an already accomplished reality.
In the resurrection of Christ, conveyed to you in your baptism, you daily die to sin and daily arise to newness of living.
In your Baptism you see the death and resurrection of your Savior played out in your life each and every day!
A Blessed Resurrection Life to You!
Pastor Froh
