Holy Week with Holding Onto Hope - Resurrection Sunday
For Holy Week 2024 we have selected reflections and artwork from Holding Onto Hope by father and daughter duo, Amy Boucher-Pye and Leo Boucher.
Holding Onto Hope is a 40-day journey exploring the themes of hope and new life through vivid biblical images and can be used through Lent or during any 40-day period.
Living in Christ
What does the apostle Paul mean when he says we’re crucified with Christ and that Christ lives in us? In pondering this, I like to think about the illustration used by F.B. Meyer, an English preacher at the turn of the twentieth century. He talked about an egg, noting how the yolk grows more and more each day, with the chick eventually being formed within the shell. So too does Christ come and live in us through his Holy Spirit, changing us day by day. As Meyer observed, Christ will ‘grow and increase and absorb into Himself everything else, and be formed in you’.
Meyer acknowledged his illustration wasn’t perfect, but it helps us to picture a deep mystery. Paul addressed this gift from God in his letter to the church at Galatia: ‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20). Paul wanted the believers in Jesus to stand firm in their faith, and not be swayed by false teachers. He called them to remember that when we die with Christ we put off our old selves, crucifying them, and that we rise into our new, redeemed selves, where Christ lives in us. We live by faith here on earth, believing in the Son of God who loves us so much that he gave himself for us.
How Christ changes us through his Spirit gives us hope. We don’t have to be beholden to the sins that have plagued us in the past – he can set us free from the destructive patterns that we so easily fall into. As we lean on him, asking God to help us in whatever we face, he will respond. He may give us an overriding sense of peace; he may prompt a loved one to be in touch with an encouraging message; he may cause some relevant words from scripture to flash into our mind. Living in Christ changes everything. Through him and in him we hold onto our hope and our faith.
God of the Son and Spirit who dwell within, enlarge my
understanding of this great mystery, that I might embrace your
presence and your power. Live in and through me, that I might
bless others with your love. Amen.
