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. 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 - because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
(Romans 6:5-10)
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Last week, if you recall, I worked with Paul's comment in the verses preceding what we just read that we had “died to sin,” and, by extension, that if we had died to one life then we must have begun to live a new life. Last week the focus was on the process; it was on how we set aside the natural instinct to be concerned with ourselves, and to concentrate on our own needs and wants and desires, and instead begin to live for Christ, and to live by what I suggested was a summary of the Christian ethic as I see it taught by Jesus in the Gospels: love God, love your neighbours, love one another and even love your enemies. Love is the ethical heart of the Christian faith. The song we sang a few minutes ago is an old one. “They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” That doesn't mean that people who aren't Christians can't be very loving people, but it is, I believe, trying to say that as followers of Christ, we follow someone who showed a unique and passionate love directed to those around him, and especially directed to those whom society had deemed unlovable, or at least unworthy of being loved. Jesus reached out to such folk. He welcomed them, he included them, he gave them dignity by how he treated them. Followers of Christ are called to do that. How, after all, could we follow Christ if we don't seek to do the things that Christ did, and Christ's life and ministry was always directed away from himself and toward those who, generally through no fault of their own, found themselves in desperate need of someone to truly love them unconditionally. Christ did that. Our calling is to do that. Such is our new life. But I've noticed over the years (and it seems to be an increasing sense in recent years) that the very concept of new life is becoming difficult for Christians to grasp in an era where the church seems to struggle for life more than it claims new life for itself or offers new life to others.
That seems basic to me. If we want to be able to claim the new life in Christ for ourselves then we have to believe in the new life in Christ – meaning that among other things we have to believe in transformation; that we are moving always forward from what we are into what God wants us to become. That's the way it was with Christ himself: always forward. No matter the risk; no matter the circumstances; no matter the distractions. Always forward to the next call God had placed up on him. Always forward: forward to Jerusalem, forward to Gethsemane, forward to Pilate, forward to the cross. All journeys that could have caused him to turn away; to say “I've done enough.” But journeys Jesus made because he trusted. He trusted God. He believed himself in new life. He knew himself that death would not be the end. He understood that resurrection (new and transformed life) was ahead. Here's what the church needs to claim before we can live our own new life in Christ – hope in resurrection. If we can put our hope in resurrection, and live in resurrection hope, then we will not fear, and we will be transformed, and we will be freed to live the life Christ calls us to. Paul wrote “we will ... be united with him in a resurrection like his.” And so we will – and that hope should lead us to the new life in Christ right now, today. So, what does it look like? How do we live it? What is the look of the new life in Christ? I want to suggest a few characteristics that people should see shining from us, and that should identify us as a community living the new life in Christ.
The first characteristic should come as no surprise. It's love. God islove, and Christ livedlove. That's what we see most powerfully in the life of Jesus himself: love on display; love lived out; love poured out. Christ's very life was a sign of love. The incarnation of God shows love – that God, who had no need to come close to us, would choose to come close to us; that God, who created, would choose to become a part of the creation; that God, who is eternal, would choose to experience, through Jesus, both the highs and the lows of human life – including betrayal, pain and death. This is love. That one who has no need to stand in solidarity with us chooses to stand in solidarity with us. Or, as the New Testament puts it, “this is love: not that we loved God, but that God loved us ...” We are called to a life of love for all those around us. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in love, and if we cannot live a life of love, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.
Another characteristic is service. What did Jesus himself say? “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” We as followers of Christ are called to a life of service. That implies a lot of things. Maybe most importantly, it tells us that we can never allow ourselves to become insular, looking out only for ourselves, wondering what's going to happen to us. The love lived out by Jesus that I just spoke of wasn't an emotion, as we usually think of the word. It was a love characterized by deliberate action. It was a love demonstrated by Jesus emptying himself for the sake of others. It was a love characterized by the great paradox: that God is both ruler and servant; that God is both shepherd and lamb. As followers of Jesus and children of this God, we are called to service. The church sometimes forgets that and seeks to “lord it over” the society around us. The church sometimes tries to control and dominate. The church sometimes seems to assume that it has a right to get its way. In other words, the church sometimes doesn't act like Jesus, who gave himself up, while the church too often tries to save itself and its position and its influence. But Jesus said, “whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it.” This is a call to service – a call to be outward looking. By doing that, we show the look of the new life in Christ. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in service, and if we cannot live a life of service, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.
Yet another characteristic is compassion. Love is fine, and service is wonderful, but both have to be filtered through a lens of compassion, so that our love and our service are extended to those who find themselves needing these things the most. Too often, we love only those we deem worthy of our love, but “God so loved the world.” God's love wasn't only for the good, pious and faithful ones. It was for the world. It's easy to love the people who love you back; the people you think are deserving. The rubber hits the road when we find ourselves confronted by those who, for one reason or another, strike us as unlovable. Too often, we serve only those who we expect will be able to pay us back in some way. But, as Jesus said, “if you lend ... only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit?” The challenge comes when we're asked to give for the sake of those who have nothing to offer in return. Somewhere along the way Christians even came up with an excuse for not showing real compassion: “the Lord helps those who help themselves.” It sounds so biblical – but it's not. It doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible. The principle actually comes from Aesop's fables, which means that it predates Christ by about 600 years – and Christ not only never said it, he lived a life that contradicted it; a life that said not “the Lord helps those who help themselves,” but rather, “the Lord helps those who cannot help themselves.” Real compassion means to willingly love and serve those from whom we expect nothing in return. Jesus did that – by washing feet, by healing the sick, by feeding the hungry, by sitting and eating with and befriending those considered by society to be sinners, by bringing the outcast in. This is a call to compassion – to be there for those who have lost hope that anyone would ever be there for them. By doing that, we show the look of the new life in Christ. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in compassion, and if we cannot live a life of compassion, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.
The good news is that we can live this kind of life. Oh, maybe we won't do it perfectly. Jesus was Jesus, after all – and we're not. But we are his body; we are called to do his ministry; we are equipped and gifted by the Holy Spirit – and that means living by love, by service and by compassion. And it means also accepting grace when we find ourselves not living in those ways (because God's grace is always upon us to give us a new beginning) and it means extending grace when we see others not living in those ways (because God's grace is always upon them to give them a new beginning.)
“... if we have been united with [Jesus] in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” That resurrection life we're called to live is a new life, characterized by love, characterized by compassion, characterized by service – and always lived by the grace of God, and with grace toward others.
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