Week 2 reading Graham Tomlin's Looking Through the Cross and chapter 4 'The Cross and Identity'. Again a large amount of the phrasing below belongs to Tomlin.
Who are you?
sometimes an easy question to answer,
sometimes an unsettling question to answer.
Who are you?
when moving to a new town or city
when getting married or becoming a parent
when changing a job or losing a job or entering retirement
when a parent, a spouse or a child dies
Who are you?
and where do you fit in the world?
We might look to
nationality
race
religion
gender
career
but many of these identity markers
are not as straightforward as they once may have been.
Who are you?
has become more fluid, more open to change
and so we are encouraged to look within,
to discover our true selves,
and so who are you?
becomes associated
with your viewing habits,
with your style of fashion,
with your likes and dislikes.
Who are you? becomes something we are told we can choose.
Look at the cross.
Look at the cross,
for the apostle Paul says,
‘I have been crucified with Christ
and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I know live in the body
I live through the faithfulness of the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself up for me.’ (Gal 2.19-20)
For Paul the cross is no longer just a historical event,
distant from him in time and space.
The cross is where he finds himself
in a very profound way partnered with Christ.
The cross of Christ
is not just where Jesus dies, but we die.
‘We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ’
says Paul,
‘if indeed we share in his sufferings’ (Rom 8.17)
and elsewhere he says
‘I want to know Christ …
to know the power of his resurrection and
the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in death’ (Phil 3.10-11)
and so he says
we are ‘to offer our bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God’ (Rom 12.1).
As we look through the cross
and ask who are we,
we are those who have been baptized,
baptized into the death of Christ
and raised with him to new life (Rom 6.4).
We die that we might live.
We are give a new identity:
Paul leaves behind the name Saul (Acts 13.9).
Who are we?
We are those who are in Christ.
We are Christian.
This is our primary identity,
more than a badge we wear,
or a choice we might make,
it is our name
our citizenship,
our family,
our vocation.
Who are we is not a matter of looking inside,
but a matter of looking to Christ.
We live as those who have left behind one identity
and have been given a new identity
that is baptism.
But whilst baptism is a one time event,
it is also a daily cleaving and embracing,
a continual turning to Christ.
Who are we is in Christ
but who we were is difficult to shake off.
We are caught between two identities –
between Adam and Christ (Rom 5.12-21)
old and new (Eph. 4.22-24, Col. 3.9-10)
sin and grace (Rom 5.1-6.14)
flesh and Spirit (Gal 5.16-17, 24-25).
We are those who look at the cross
and see we have been clothed with Christ (Gal 3.27),
we have put on a new self (Col 3.10),
one in which we are
redeemed, forgiven, loved, blessed and called
to give ourselves for the sake of those God
placed around us in often small and mundane,
but occasionally large and painful ways.
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