Romans 6:1b-11 (NRSV)
Read Romans 6:1b-11 on biblegateway.com
Chapter 6What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? Verse 2By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Verse 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Verse 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Verse 5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Verse 6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. Verse 7For whoever has died is freed from sin. Verse 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. Verse 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. Verse 10The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. Verse 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Devotion
From the moment we are born, we begin to die. Aging is the reality for all of us. When you are a kid you cannot wait to grow older. Yet, when you are an adult you find out that aging is not all that it is cracked up to be.
If birth begins the inevitable journey towards death, what does that have to say about how we think about baptism? Could baptism be the beginning of our journey towards resurrection? And could it be that as we age in one journey, we get younger in the other?
All of the things we usually attribute to youth—the energy, the desire to grow, the optimistic outlook that borders on innocent—these are the qualities I have found in the elderly members of my weekly Bible Study. More and more I am beginning to think of this as being the natural part of the journey toward resurrection.
Prayer
Give me the youthful vigor that comes with an aging faith. As I become an adult on earth, may I grow younger as a child of God. Amen.