Our Life in the Trinity

First We All Die

Posted on February 12, 2025

By Linda Rex

February 23, 2025, 7^th Sunday in Epiphany—I was sitting at a table the other day, and we were talking about the one reality we all face at some point in our lives—death. Its seems that no matter where we are in life, we have to come to grips with the truth that physical death is currently part of our human condition.

The good news is that Jesus Christ entered into death, bringing it into a new place. In Christ, we find that death is not an end or a terror, but rather, a necessary step to the fullness of our eternal life. In the New Testament passage for this Sunday, 1 Corinthians 15:35–38, 42–50, the apostle Paul uses the concept of putting a seed such as a piece of grain in the ground, to picture our death.

What is interesting about putting a seed in the ground is that the planted seed ceases to be itself. In one sense, it dies, though in reality it simply begins to change. In that seed is all the information that is needed for the formation of an entire new plant. The seed could contain what is needed to grow a giant sequoia tree, or simply a stalk of wheat. In any case, what goes in the ground does not really resemble what eventually will grow from it. And what is produced through this small seed is often even more seed, such as the several cobs of corn produced on one cornstalk, grown from a single kernel of corn.

The thing most of us resist is the idea of dying. This is because we are created for life—to live. The tree in the garden of Eden the first humans were encouraged to eat from was the tree of life. God’s heart for each of us is that we choose life. He wants us to live—and to live in right relationship with him and one another. But often our attempts to choose life end up leading us down the road into death. Our ways of living our lives may make sense to us, but they often lead to spiritual death, death of relationships, and death to our blessings and joy.

This is why Jesus came—in order to bring to an end the control death has over us. As God in human flesh, Jesus lived a truly human life, even to the point of dying our death. Jesus entered into the realm of the dead, ransacking that place, and bringing us all up into new life. When God tells us to choose life, he does so by coming in his Son Jesus Christ and decidedly making that choice in our place and on our behalf. Jesus goes first, enables us to follow, and by the Spirit, we can now choose life as we should. Instead of choosing to live according to our human ways of doing things, we are given Jesus’ heart and mind by the Spirit, and we are able to live and walk in Christ, rather than in our human ways which eventually lead to death.

One of the hardest journeys for any of us is the journey of dying to self. There is a death we must die in this world and it is a death of self-will and self-centeredness. This is what Jesus meant when he said that his followers are to deny themselves, pick up their crosses, and follow him (Matt. 16:24). Our stubborn willfulness and insistence upon independence from God takes us down the path to death, specifically spiritual death. God does not want this for us. He created us for life—life in relationship with him and one another, life in self-giving sacrificial love. But the only way to get to this place of life is through death—the dying of self. And this does not come naturally. It is a gift of the Spirit.

In our culture today, life in the Spirit as we follow Jesus is not necessarily considered healthy or realistic. When we read the New Testament passage, Luke 6:27–38, we hear Jesus preaching a way of life that is truly countercultural and difficult. In order to live it out, one would need to die many deaths day by day as they sought to follow Jesus in this way. But Jesus himself said that he came to bring life, life in abundance (John 10:10). Jesus’ call to life brings with it a need to die to all that does not agree with the truth of who we are in him. Jesus defines who we are now, and we find our true life in him. We are challenged to embrace our death in this way, and to find our new life in him.

Here we find in more than one way that death is really not something for us to fear. We need not fear dying to self, for Jesus has already made the path straight for us, given us his Spirit, and he stands ready to intercede for us in each moment, enabling us to leave behind old ways and embrace new ways. And when we face our actual physical death, we find there is nothing to fear, for Jesus stands in our place on our behalf, interceding for us even in that place of death. Death is a new adventure for us now, a hopeful place in which a new life begins and lasts on into eternity. And we can embrace our physical death when it comes, as simply the first step on a new journey.

Thank you, Father, for giving us new life in your Son. Thank you, Jesus, for caring for us and for meeting us in the depths of our darkness to bring us into your life. Help us by your Spirit to live in the truth of who we are in you, for we share in your death and in your resurrection. Amen.

“But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?’ You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. … So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, ‘The first “man”, Adam, “became a living soul.” ’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”      1 Corinthians 15:35–38, 42–50 NASB

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