The bittersweetness of being buried and raised

Jane Denniston June 25, 2026 0 0

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Romans 6:1b-11 (NIV-UK)

6b Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? 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.

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

I think one of the hardest things to get our heads round as Christians is all those theological truths that yet seem so far from our experience.

Jesus is the vine, we are the branches – regardless of how we feel, we are united with Christ.

We are seated with him in the heavenly places – the reality of our new life in Christ is that we have already embarked on eternal life and death is but a door we need to pass through.

We are dead to sin – yet we struggle to make that a lived reality.

The Christian faith began with a paradox – God made human – and throughout it we encounter ever more paradoxes as we walk the road of faith. I often wonder what it would be like if we fully realised our place in Christ. But perhaps we can’t live like that. Perhaps that realisation would take us so fully into the presence of God that we would leave our mortal bodies, and all that he has yet for us to do, behind. And so the bittersweetness of our experience continues while we are in the flesh – the kingdom is already here, but not yet.

Prayer:

Loving God,

help us to understand more fully the truth

that our old bodies have died to sin and risen with Christ.

Help us to know more fully the truth

that we are seated with him in the heavenly places.

Help us to live more fully the truth

that your kingdom is already here.

When we rise to greet the new day, each day,

may we rise as if from death

and don our new bodies of salvation, Amen