Lent Week Three—Friday
Psalm 91 Jeremiah 11:1-8, 14-20 Romans 6:1-11 John 8: 33-47
Today’s readings share two major threads—the first, that we are enslaved by sin and doomed to suffer and die in its thrall, the second, that God is our protector and that through Christ we are freed into everlasting life. Of the four readings, I find that today’s selection from the letter of Paul to the Romans has the most resonance for me. Like Jeremiah or indeed like Christ in John’s Gospel, I usually have no trouble finding where I have failed in my life, where I have sinned in thought, word, or deed. Indeed, I could list a long catalog.
But I take great consolation from Paul’s words—that when we were baptized in Christ, we joined him on the cross, and when we were baptized in Christ, we joined him in resurrection into eternal life. And in this way of thinking we are “dead to sin, but alive in God in Christ Jesus.” This is very comforting to my heart. If I turn to Christ, renew my Baptismal Covenant, my slavery to sin is ended. With Christ, I have been freed to be with God.
Rob Gilchrist
The Carpenter's Nail 