Colossians – Laura

Paul knows about dying. He talks about dying a lot in his letters (Paul uses the words “death”, “die”, “died”, “dead”, and “crucified” almost 150 times in his letters!!!). He’s not trying to be morbid…he’s trying to follow Christ. Paul understands the intrinsic part that death plays in the life of the believer. Not only are we dying, physically, even as we live, but we are born spiritually dead. We must be made alive.  These forces of life and death are at work in us, even as we go about the very normal thing we think of as life. We tend to think that to live, we must go on breathing, talking, and walking around. But Paul knows that Real Life is so much more than that, in fact, it has nothing to do with physical life at all. “You died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:3-4) We think death is something that is coming, one day, hopefully not too soon. But Paul knows that life, as we have known it, is over… “having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.” (Colossians 2:12) We just can’t think about life the same way anymore. Life is over, death moves in, but only for a time. New life is coming!

Peace,
Laura

(Photo by Massimo Catarinella, some rights reserved)