One of the things you learn when you do counseling is that people can't help telling their own story. This is especially true when something big has happened in their life. With my brother Jay's death on Sunday morning, I am no exception. Even with the hard things that happen in our lives we find that God is helping us to grow in our faith.

The loss of someone we love is an experience that all of us share. It is wrenching and can affect us deeply. Grief can completely debilitate us or it can fill us with energy to work toward a goal or right a wrong that we connect with the person we are grieving. The Polly Klass foundation is a great example of this. After her tragic kidnapping and death Polly's father Mark has been devoting his life to make sure that his daughter's fate will not be shared by other children. Great good has come out of his pain.

Great loss is always a dividing point in our lives. No matter what we choose it is certain that our lives will change.

Last Sunday was a very special time for me. It was a time when the promise of God we all share in Jesus Christ became very real to me. There were a number of events that all happened very close to one another that contributed to my experience.

Together as a congregation we experienced the baptism of Victoria Santorsiero. Most Christians look on Baptism as the beginning of life in Christ, and so it is. But God's way of bringing us into that new life is something we very seldom think about God's way to life is through death. This is because we need to be separated from all the baggage we might be tempted to drag with us. Theologically we call this baggage sin. Paul explains it this way; Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 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. (NRS 6:3-11)

Our faith is centered in the belief that through Jesus Christ we are able to find new life, Resurrection Life. After the baptism I happened to look out the window in the lobby. What I saw was new life. The trees lining our entry path have burst into bloom. Sprig has arrived just in time to remind us all that just as Jesus told us we serve a God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of us are alive. (Luke 20:38) Spring is one of God's greatest symbols of Resurrection life. On that glorious Sunday I was able for just a moment as I looked out the window at the dark clouds and the profusion of flowers to see past the bondage of this life and know the reality of God's sustaining love for us.

My experience of my brother's death was surrounded by my experienc of new life, of Resurrection Life. The workds Paul wrote about Baptism and the loving gift of God that it embodies are the very center of our faith. My Brother Jay's experience was exactly the same as Victoria's. Though I see this truth through a glass dimly, I do see it and my heart rejoices.

This double experience of new life, new birth, encompasses the purpose of the Church of the Resurrection. This is what we are about, the mission God has entrusted in us through Jesus Christ, making old things new, redeeming life, redeeming creation itself so that we can be people God created us to be, and as the redeemed and recreated people of God to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Baptism and death are both change and change is hope. It is the power of God working in our lives to transform us into the image of God in Jesus Christ. We can't be effective as a people of God unless we willingly and joyfully embrace the changes that God puts before us.

My Brother Jay's time here on earth is finished, Victoria's is just beginning. The experiences they shared with me Sunday are more alike that we might otherwise believe. Both are the fulfillment of God's promise in Jesus Christ. And this is the promise of Resurrection Life; "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." (NRS John 3:16)

Pastor Jim Bliss

Contact Pastor Jim:
Email: jbliss@resluthdublin.org
Phone: (925) 828-1580.

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