Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ~ Romans 6:5-11
Written by Rev. Erik Khoobyarian | Senior Pastor
We began our journey on Ash Wednesday, recognizing the intimate relationship between the stories of our lives that in many ways seem to culminate upon our death. We might wonder how those stories will be captured; how will others remember us? What would we choose to share about our lives if we wrote an old-fashioned tombstone epitaph (can you summarize your life in a few pithy sentences to be etched into stone?) or our own obituary?
Our lives in Christ, though, on Easter, become more than a collection of the highs and lows of our earthly existence. And what this profoundly means is that all of who we are is made new in the life-giving death and resurrection of Jesus.
I’ll be honest… I struggle with this! I struggle with comprehending what it means for my identity to be so thoroughly defined by the God of the universe that everything else falls away. Initially, I struggled with this because as a child I liked the things that I held onto as defining me - my skills, my accomplishments. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that I struggle, also, with the reality of my sinful nature and the ways that I fall short, way short, of the objective set before me to love others.
The promise of Easter, though, is not that my identity disappears. Rather, the good news is that your stories, each of our stories, are a beautiful part of the mosaic of God’s creation. Your stories matter, and your stories are not only redeemed in Christ, but you, and I, and each one of us are grafted into the great cloud of witnesses who, together, now and forever, will be alive in Christ! Perhaps that’s what I’d like on my tombstone … “Alive in Christ!”
Prayer: I give thanks for this Lenten journey and pray for all who were on it with me. I pray for our journey from here as Easter people, continuing to learn what it means to be made new in you. Help me to consider myself dead to sin and alive in you. Amen.