Are we yet alive, Lord?
We feel pain, sorrow, happiness.
We cry, wail, laugh.
Are these signs that we are alive?
Or are they but death-gurgles masquerading as signs of life?
We find it hard to believe, to understand, that we come to life
through being baptized into your Son’s good death.
Yet you have made us your baptized,
giving us life,
life that makes our pain, sorrow, and happiness
real;
life that makes our crying, wailing, and laughing
service to one another.
Raise us, then, from our watery graves shouting,
“Jesus Christ is Lord!”
so that the world may see
your liveliness, your love.
Amen.
Stanley Hauerwas, 1940-, American ethicist and theologian
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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.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his,
we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
prayer & verse 