Friday after Quasi modo geniti
Posted on April 29, 2022 by under
Scripture: Romans 6:3-11 (NKJV)
6:3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Devotion
Many of us were baptized as infants, so we may feel that event is strange and remote. But we must remember that our baptism is a powerful thing! Most importantly, God has promised the forgiveness of sins through His Word and the washing of water. And we can also see powerful symbolism in the transition from death to life.
Just as Jesus Christ died for our sins and was gloriously resurrected to life, so too should our old sinful natures die in baptism. But the focus here is not our death, but our new life! For we are by nature slaves to sin, but through baptism God claims us as His own and gives us new life to live for Him. We read in our Small Catechism, in the fourth chief part: “It signifies that the old man in us is to be drowned by daily sorrow and repentance, and die with all sins and evil lusts; so that daily there may come forth and arise a new man, forever living before God in righteousness and purity.”
So baptism has power, but let us also consider this symbolism. Thanks be to God that He has forgiven our sins, so that we may live before God in righteousness and purity!
Prayer: Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we who have celebrated the solemnities of the Lord’s Resurrection, may, by the help of Thy grace, bring forth the fruits thereof in our life and conversation; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
