Wanted Dead or Alive!

As you may know I was raised in the west, sometimes called the wild west, where legends of famous outlaws blanketed history. In every small town you could always find a sign to purchase to hassle your best friends. The saying was for outlaws, but Christ wants us alive, not dead.

Brethren, all who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.  We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.  We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.  For he who has died is freed from sin.  But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.  For 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 our Lord.

Romans 6.3-11

The Feast of Theophany reminds us that we died once and for all in our baptism. Now as Christians we are alive in Christ. “Death no longer has dominion” over our lives. We used to be outlaws. Now we are members of the Body of Christ.

Outlaws are put in prison and chains. We are free from the prison of sin and the chains of death cannot hold us. Unfortunately, although we are free, we willingly commit crimes worthy of being put back in prison. STILL, God wants to save us from the prison of hell.

Since we can’t seem to live without ‘getting thrown back into prison’ Christ gives us the gift of Holy Confession. We are free to stand in front of Christ and the Church and confess that, although we deserve prison, we want to be free in Christ. Every time, Christ forgives us.

Every time we stand in Holy Confession, and confess with our hearts, we are forgiven. No outlaw of the ‘old west’ had it so good. In the ‘old west’ outlaws would be put in prison and left to rot. Christ has a different plan for us. He does not want us to rot.

The joy of the Feast of Theophany isn’t ‘just’ that Christ was baptized, but that we can now be baptized into Him. If ‘all’ we celebrate is His baptism, we lose out on the real gift God gives us. He gives us the freedom from sin and the freedom from the chains of death.

We may sin like outlaws, but Christ wants us alive, not dead. The rest is up to us. Now, go to Confession and stay out of prison.