Christians are all about the Crucifixion, right? I mean they wear crosses to remind them of Jesus's death and resurrection. They make signs of the cross and put crosses on their cars to identify themselves as Christians. We know that the cross represents our salvation (1 Cor 15:3-5) and we treasure it. Sort of. We treasure what Christ's cross meant to us, but I'm not so sure we are very keen on the ramifications.
Baptism, Paul tells us, is a symbol of dying ... with Christ (Rom 6:3). Baptism immerses us into His death (Rom 6:4). Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ" (Gal 2:20). And while most of us nod our heads and agree ... we agree in principle. Not practice so much. We're fine with the idea that we are to identify with Christ's death, but actually living a crucified life is really not a pleasant notion to most of us.
It's not rational, you know. We like the "raised to newness of life" thing (Rom 6:4), just not the dying part. But you can't be raised to new life if you don't die. And it is this fundamental truth that makes Christianity what it is. When we balk at putting the flesh to death (Rom 8:13; Col 3:5), it simply cuts us off from "the life which I now live I live by faith in the Son of God" (Gal 2:20). We cut ourselves off from the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23 as opposed to Gal 5:19-21). The old self has to die if we are to enjoy a life lived in the Spirit. I'm afraid that's a crucifixion we don't much like.
2 comments:
Like all medicinal pain, we need to bear it for it to do the healing work it is intended to do.
Not so much a matter of not liking it, but more simply of the difficulty in living it. It's just not at the forefront of our minds. As we live our lives, our focus must be on the task at hand in order to properly complete those tasks. So immersed, we too often only think of how we failed Him after the fact...which is why it's a good thing we have Jesus. However, it's a struggle I constantly strive to overcome.
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