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Colossians 3:3: You have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For ancient people, wisdom was the wisdom of death. <\/span> A wise man knows he is going to die, that his life is lived toward death, and that death is an absolute end. <\/span> A wise man resigns himself to death, courageously facing the hopelessness of the grave, or rushes toward death, embracing it on the battlefield or in a noble suicide. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the letter to the Hebrews talks about men living in the old world, it says that they lived as slaves to the fear of death. <\/span> Ancient philosophers and heroes would not have put it like that, but that\u2019s what it is. <\/span> Fear of death enslaved everyone. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The gospel announces Jesus\u2019 victory over death, which is the Father\u2019s victory over death in the resurrection. <\/span> But we\u2019re often too facile in passing over the continuing reality of death. <\/span> It is still a fact that every last one of us is going to end up in the ground, or in a tomb, or with ashes scattered to the winds. <\/span> For us too, wisdom is the wisdom of death: \u201cSo teach us to number our days,\u201d Moses wrote, \u201cthat we may apply our hearts to wisdom.\u201d <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But the Christian wisdom of death is different. <\/span> The world is constantly telling us that we are not in charge. <\/span> The flat tire, the business plan that doesn\u2019t work out, the degree we never finished \u2013 life frustrates us, and drives home our limitations. <\/span> Death is the ultimate limit. <\/span> Our time here is short. <\/span> Someday, this world will not be graced with your presence. <\/span> Meditation on death is meditation on creaturehood. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s what made this world so hateful for the ancients. <\/span> They wanted to be like gods, but death showed them how human, all too human, they were. <\/span> The wisdom literature of the Old Testament observes the same thing \u2013 that death reveals our limits \u2013 but draws the opposite conclusion. <\/span> For Solomon, death is not only a continuous reminder of our limits, a reminder that we are not God; it is also a pointer to the deathless God in heaven. <\/span> Even before the resurrection, the Bible was urging <\/span> Israel <\/span> to remember death, and rejoice. <\/span> <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Baptism is a death. <\/span> Paul says that we are baptized into the death of Jesus, and therefore die to one world so that we can begin to live, eternally, in another. <\/span> Baptism is the effective sign that we have died, and that our lives are now hid with Christ in God. <\/span> Baptism kills us, and calls us to rejoice. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a death near the beginning of life, baptism reminds us that we live out our lives under the shadow of the death that will come at the end. <\/span> We baptized are given the wisdom of death, the wisdom to know that we are creatures and that our time will end. <\/span> But in reminding us of our death, baptism is also reminding us to rejoice in the God of life, the God who raises the dead. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your child dies today, and begins a life of dying, a live lived toward death. Because of that, today is not a day of sorrow, but a day of joy. <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Colossians 3:3: You have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. For ancient people, wisdom was the wisdom of death. A wise man knows he is going to die, that his life is lived toward death, and that death is an absolute end. A wise man resigns himself to death, courageously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology-liturgical"],"yoast_head":"\n