Reflection: Consider Yourself Dead (January 12, 2014)

The Baptism of Our Lord
Isaiah 42:1-9; Romans 6:1-11; Matthew 3:13-17

“Consider yourself dead,” is a line found in books and movies as part of a plot line that is leading toward an eventual showdown between the good guy and the bad guy. Clearly a threat, this line is spoken by a character who is intent on defeating and destroying his adversary. While the outcome varies according to the plot, the threat by itself sets the stage for how the rest of the story plays out as well as the fate of one or more of the characters.

“Consider yourself dead” is a good summary of what today’s Epistle lesson is saying. However, far from being a threat of a future action, the call of Romans 6:11 to “consider yourselves dead” is a reminder of what has already happened in your life and what should come of it. Considering yourself dead flows from the facts that you have been baptized into death and that through baptism your old self was put to death (literally, “crucified”) with Christ. By and through Baptism, as a follower of Jesus you should “consider yourself dead.”

What does it mean to be dead in this way? Unlike the threat of being killed, this statement is a call to take hold of the new life that now yours in Christ. Romans explains that your old self was put to death with Christ in order that you could be freed from the bondage of sin. Because you have died with Christ, you have been set free from sin and now you are able to live with Christ. You should consider yourself dead to sin in terms of the grip that it once held on you; the influence it tries to have in your thinking, desires, and actions; and, the shame and guilt with which it seeks to fill your life. You are, in a very real and powerful way, dead to sin.

Being dead to sin is just the beginning for you. More than being dead in this way, the call to “consider yourself dead” is also a call to “consider yourself alive” in Christ. You died with Christ in Baptism in order that you “might walk in newness of life.” In your new life you have moved beyond the ultimate showdown between the good and the bad and live in the victory that Christ has won. You are safe from the threats of the enemy, liberated from the constraints of sin, and free from the fear of death because they have been defeated by the death and resurrection of Jesus — the death that you too have died and the new life that you now live through Baptism.

By His grace consider yourself dead — dead to sin, dead to the hopelessness of this world, dead to death — and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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