Paul says, Christ is our life. Not, Christ gives us life, or Christ defends our life, or Christ supports our life. No: Christ is our life.
I died, Paul tells the Galatians, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. We died with Christ, and Christ lives in us by the Spirit so that our lives conform to His life, repeatedly dying and living again.
We are radically decentered. The center of your life is not in you. It is not even here on earth. Our life is now hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1). Our life sits at the right hand of the Father.
The sum of what Paul says is that we, just as much as Jesus, are living ones. We know it would be a mistake to seek Jesus among the tombs. It’s the same mistake to seek ourselves here, to seek meaning and satisfaction and life in what this dead world offers.
Knowing that Jesus is our living Lord, and our lives are hid with Him in heaven, therefore: Consider your body dead to immorality, impurity, lust, idolatrous greed. Be renewed according to the image of Christ, the new man.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
More from Easter
Continue reading related articles
Living Among the Dead
An Easter homily from 2009 . Why do you seek the living among the dead? That was the angel’s question to the women who came to the tomb on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. Instead of finding Jesus, they found an empty tomb with the stone rolled away. Confused and…
Do Not Fear
An old Easter homily, more relevant today than when I gave it . Jesus knew fear. He was no passionless Stoic sage, as the Stoic critics of the church recognized from the beginning. Instead of reaching for the hemlock like Socrates, He shrank from the cup the Father offered Him…
Lord After Death
On the third day after Jesus’ death, women came to the tomb to dress the body and found the tomb empty, heard from angels that Jesus had risen from the dead, and shortly after encountered Jesus Himself. It really happened. If it really happened, then the power of tyrants is…
In Medias Res
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.