By Mark Grace, CCCNZ Ambassador
Ki te mea hoki kua honoa tatou ki a ia i runga i te ahua o tona matenga, ka honoa ano tatou ki a ia i runga i te ahua o tona aranga:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Romans 6:5
Part 1 of 2:
How are you and I, living in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2024, united with Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, which occurred roughly 1990 years ago and 18,000 kilometers away?
Faith. Through faith, there is an inseparable link between Jesus’s death and resurrection and our own. By faith, we have been united with him in a death like his. By faith, we received the Holy Spirit who applied Christ’s death and resurrection to us.
It is certainly faith that unites us to Christ. But Paul also says that it is through suffering that we share in Jesus’ death and resurrection. He writes:
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body (2 Corinthians 4:9-11)”.
Gabriel Fluhrer notes, “We must not read our own definition of suffering into the New Testament’s use of the term. Suffering means not only martyrdom for one’s faith but also the mundane frustrations and unspectacular difficulties of our everyday lives when they are endured for Jesus’ sake”.
Not all suffering is the same—from martyrdom, and persecution, through to the “mundane frustrations, and unspectacular difficulties” of our everyday lives.
Suffering may seem to produce death, but it also produces life. Suffering produces the eternal life of Christ in us. When I reflect on my life, so many moments that felt like “death” and “suffering” were the very moments God in his grace was making me more like Christ. Moments that felt like death led to experiences of being united with him in his resurrection.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
