The dying day was yesterday -- Good Friday. The living day is tomorrow -- Easter.
On Friday the old died, on Sunday the new came.
The dead day was today, the Saturday in between.
Friday was the rejection, the pain, the suffering, the tragedy, the shock, the horror, the disbelief. Oh, God, did this happen? You go to bed hoping you wake up tomorrow and find it's a dream.
Saturday the reality of it hits. The sun comes up and nothing has changed. It really did happen. It's final. Done. When there's a sealed grave, there's no hope for going back and undoing anything. Now the reality of separation hits -- he's out of sight, gone, you can't get to him. You grieve, you hurt, and you miss him. And there's regret -- did this have to happen? Should you have done something different? If only...what about...what if... But there'll be no answers. Burial slams the door on death.
If you can somewhat picture that, then incredibly, he now wants you to put yourself in there, too:
"We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death..." -- Rom 6.4
"I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live..." -- Gal 2.20
When I first trusted Jesus' death and payment for my sins, he says the old me died and was gone, and a new me came. The old me became, and is, as dead as Jesus was on Saturday. Once dead, dead forever. Buried, out of sight, gone, final -- as buried, gone and out of sight as Jesus on Saturday.
And God says I shouldn't act like the old me is alive. Because, even though it's not, I can behave as if it is, acting like I used to act when the old me was alive. He says don't do that.
But, sometimes I do. OK, I act like the old me is alive, alot. And when I notice that I'm thinking or speaking or acting like the old me, I'm supposed to remember that THAT me is dead. Sometimes it feels like some things I do have to die all over again:
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry... You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. -- Col 3.4-10
Maybe that changing how you act, that ongoing process of your behavior becoming holy, is supposed to feel like death -- like a burial. If I really am changing how I think and behave, if something really is dead, then it should be like a burial. Final, done, out of sight, no hope for that thing being alive again. There can be some emotions and struggle and confusion in all that. Maybe that's normal, and a sign that there's some real dying going on.
First the death, then the burial. THEN the new life. My problem is I want new life without the death and burial part. But the order never changes. And the burial is as important as the death and new life:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures -- 1 Corinthians 15.3-4
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. -- Romans 6.4-5
I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me -- Galatians 2.20
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