Easter Wednesday - Devotions in Exile

Easter Wednesday - Devotions in Exile

The lection for Easter Wednesday:
Acts 3:13-5, 17-19
Colossians 3:1-7
John 21:1-14 
            Our text for today's devotion is the reading from Colossians: 
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

Let us look more closely at this text. It says: If you have been raised up with Christ… If you, by contrition and repentance, have buried your sin, in forgiveness you have been raised up. …keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. That means, your sins have been put to death and been buried in Christ’s death and burial, AND as Christ has been raised from the dead, so you also live a new life, the life Christ lives in you and through you.

Martin Luther writes about this in his Small Catechism:
What does such baptizing with water indicate?
It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
Where is this written?
St. Paul writes in Romans chapter six: “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom. 6:4)

If you are a Christian, how do you live? You live differently. It is not the world that informs you life choices of right and wrong, you also tune out Satan. It should also not be your flesh and it’s sinful desires that inform your life choices. Instead, it should be God’s good and holy Law. This is the Law Christ kept for you with His holy and perfect life in obedience to it, dying to free you from your former bondage to sinfulness and disobedience to it. In Christ, your past disobedience is forgiven – buried in His death and resurrection.

So, consider again the question, ‘if you are a Christian, how do you live?’ You live in the love of God in Christ Jesus, willingly obedient to His holy and righteous law. Or, as our text says:
Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

Did you notice that all of those sins mentioned, God calls idolatry? Through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recorded by Paul’s pen in this letter to the Colossians, God is saying that our sinfulness against our neighbor in thought, word, and deed is idolatry! It is idolatry because it is disobedience to His holy and righteous Law. 

As Christians, it is to be our joy to keep God’s Law.
No, we do not expect to earn God’s grace by our obedience.
No, we do not expect to earn a place in God’s kingdom by our obedience.
We do keep God’s Law because it is expected of us! We keep God’s Law because it is now our joy to do so, out of love for God and for our neighbor. We are the beloved, redeemed children of God, made so by God’s gracious gift of adoption in the miraculous gift of Baptism into Christ.

During this time in human history, we have been incredibly blessed by God to love our neighbor during our shared trials and tribulations. What a blessing to be able to pray for our neighbors – all of them. And, as we have opportunity, as we are blessed by God to do so, let us love our neighbor by assisting them as we are able with whatever their need may be.

We have been loved by God in Christ Jesus. We know that indeed this life is only fleeting. Our hope is that as we have died with Christ, we will be raised with Him – now and in our flesh on the last day. What a glorious day our resurrection day will be!!! Until that day, we live in the joy and peace that is our in Christ Jesus, to the glory of our heavenly Father, by the strength that the Spirit bestows upon us!

He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Almighty God, by the glorious resurrection of Your Son, Jesus Christ, You destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light. Grant that we who have been raised with Him may abide in His presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory: through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (Collect for Easter Wednesday)


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