|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
I was baptized at Bible camp when I was 12 years old. A long time ago! Yet I remember the pastor’s name who baptized me — Ray Jones.
I also remember what he told me, “Grant, when you stand above the water, picture in your mind Jesus on the cross. When you go into the water, think of Jesus buried for your sins, and when you come out of the water, you are raised with Jesus. Always remember this Grant — death, burial, and resurrection!
Pastor Ray, you can tell me how proud you are of me when I get to heaven. I’ve remembered. Let me repeat — death, burial, and resurrection.
Ray received his insight from Paul’s teaching in Romans 6. . .
Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives (Romans 6:3-4, NLT).
Death means separation. Scripture reveals a wound larger than the universe with Jesus separated from the Father. The holy of holies curtain torn top to bottom: Jesus crying out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthanei?” or “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
I think something flowed into this God-sized wound: the sins of all humankind.
Yours, mine, everyone’s.
Burial gave Jesus an opportunity. No, He didn’t lie comatose in the tomb. The New Testament describes Jesus preaching to spirits imprisoned (1 Peter 3:19) and then leading captivity captive (Ephesians 4:8). And though scholars debate exactly what these two verses mean, we do know, according to Romans 6, that our sins were buried with Him.
Nice to know that with Jesus buried with our sins, they no longer have eternal impact in our lives!!! And that through preaching, we can hear this good news in the land of the living.
Raised. The power that raised Jesus from the dead now gives us life. The resurrection completes the story of an exchanged or substitutionary solution for our separation from God — that we died with Jesus, were buried with Him, and then resurrected with Him.
The resurrection gives us a promise, too. Separated from God because of our sin, but now. . .
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in us (Romans 8:11).
Reconnected with God, relationship restored — the power of God flows through us again! Thanks, Pastor Ray — death, burial, and resurrection!
I will not forget.