Ordinary Time

Pause

“I feel so alive!” We all have experiences that can make us shout that phrase. But we can also feel those occasions don’t come along often enough and we long to know that feeling again, especially in difficult times.

Feeling alive is attached always to the One who gives us life. Open yourself in these next moments to be touched by life as it is meant to be.

Listen

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, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have 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

Think

I’m a slave to coffee. I go to sleep at night thinking about how good the coffee is going to be the next morning. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I have a personalized Starbucks rewards card. Coffee helps me keep moving; without it, I become a slave to my headaches.

Paul explains that sin weighs us down, holding us back from the joyful life Jesus offers us. For a long time I understood sin as a set list of things Christians could never do. Coffee might be on that list somewhere. But, thankfully, Jesus explains that our new, resurrected life is bound up in the people around us. Sin is what keeps us from living that new life. Sin is what keeps us from each other.

As Christ-followers, we are not slaves to that pain. We die with Jesus in baptism, and we rise with Jesus into new life, freed. Jesus says the kingdom is here and it is still to come. So living as people full of new life, leaning on each other, we are living, breathing, coffee-drinking proof that the kingdom is at work.

Lesley-Ann Hix

Pray

God of mercy, help me embrace my full resurrection life. Thank you for walking with me as I live a life that testifies to your promise. Amen.

Go

Breathe. Breathe deeply and feel the spirit of life within. Know that the Giver of life is with you, making you alive by the Spirit that is still at work in all of creation.

Then walk. Walk confidently into your day, aware that the life-giving Christ is alongside you with every step.