The Life That Is Truly Life

One of the miracles of Easter is that we are given new names. Think of how Jesus renamed Cephas as Peter. Yahweh renamed Abram as Abraham. The risen Jesus renamed Saul as Paul. And one of the new names we are given in Christ is “those who have been brought from death to life” (Romans 6:13).

We get to participate in what Paul calls elsewhere “the life that is truly life” (1 Timothy 6:19), with Jesus leading the way into a world of possibilities that don’t exist when we just live for ourselves. Now we get to participate with Jesus in what he calls “the renewal of all things” (Matthew 19:28). This is how one scholar puts it:

It is easy to find the broken places in our world and those that deal death. Where are the resurrection spaces? Where do we look to see that death does not, in fact, have the last word? And what is our work in bridging the gap between death and life? - Wil Gafney

This new life is clearly not just for ourselves - it’s for the sake of the world. Do you have a sense of how Jesus has been drawing you to participate in the goodness he’s up to in the world? (Hint: look at some of the places you’ve found healing - he may want to leverage your experience in that area to serve others in similar situations).