Lent 2014
April 19, 2014

 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  

 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 6:3-11 

My father died on a Sunday morning. He had had a massive heart attack one week earlier and was rushed to the VA hospital shortly after arriving at the local emergency room. The VA had strict visiting rules: every two hours for only ten minutes. I went for the 8:00 am visit the day he died and found my father sitting on the side of the bed looking healthier than I had seen him in 20 years. He was in good spirits and pleased to see me.  I glanced at his EKG screen and it looked like a child had scribbled it with random up and down motions. I must have looked alarmed because Dad looked at it and looked at me and said very calmly, “It is worse than you think.”  As I was leaving I stopped by the nurses’ station and asked about the EKG and was told that it was not that unusual. There were three or four inches of ice and snow on the roads and my brother was planning on driving the 70 miles from his home that day. When I got home 30 minutes later, I started to call him, give him a good report and encourage him not to make that drive but something told me to check with the hospital again. The nurse I talked to this time said, “You need to come back, your father has taken a turn for the worse.” He had died in that brief span of time. 

From that experience, I think I know some of what the disciples must have felt when Jesus died on the cross. He had told them several times his death was coming. It just did not register. I’m sure they ran the tape of those various previous conversations over and over again on this silent Saturday.  

Today I would encourage us all to run the tapes of our lives in Christ over again. Have we been living as Christ would want us to live? Have we heard the calls for our service He is making to us? Have we responded to those calls? Christ’s purpose on earth is finished to begin anew tomorrow.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. — Romans 6:11 

Prayer: Lord, as we consider the magnitude of your mission to us, prepare us for our mission for you. Amen.

The identities of students, families, or staff in stories that are shared in the devotions have been altered to protect their privacy. Any similarities between these stories and the experience of others are coincidental. No stories about students, families of students, or staff from Putnam Heights Elementary School are included in any of these devotions.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.