Ash Wednesday. The beginning of our season of reflection and repentance as we move toward the celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
For this season, I’ve felt the Lord nudging me to meditate on what it means to be crucified with Christ. Why?
My life right now is a bit chaotic in several areas. I don’t like chaos. I like structure and schedule. But last Sunday at church, part of a song I’ve sung many times—“Christ Be Magnified” by Cody Carnes—spoke direction to my heart:
I think what struck me this time was that I identified “death is just a doorway into resurrection life” as part of “if the cross brings transformation, then I’ll be crucified with you.”
For me, when I think of being crucified with Christ, I think of dying to self. But that’s generally where it stops. Dying to me. To my flesh. To my desires. I rarely play that out to what is beyond it. That my dying to self—as not fun as that is—leads to resurrection life here on Earth. Resurrection life inside me, spilling out into the world around me. The world swathed in chaos. In suffering. In evil. In injustice. But to have the kind of resurrection life that can not only endure that world but care for it and thrive in it requires that daily dying to myself.
I don’t enjoy dying to myself, if I’m honest. But if I’m honest, I also don’t like to think about what Christ went through on the cross, either. I don’t like suffering or dying. And yet without these—His then, mine daily—I have no resurrection life, now or later.
So this is my focus during Lent—taking up my cross daily so that I might live that new life in the here and now. And that is not just for my own gain or fulfillment. My resurrection life magnifies Christ, which is the whole point of the song!
My chaotic circumstances might not change. But I believe my heart will.
Here’s the full song. I hope it speaks to your heart as it does mine.
How do you spend the season of Lent? Do you do a themed devotional? Give up something? Have a special routine of focus? Please share!
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What a beautiful song!
I’m glad you enjoyed it, too! It’s one of my favorites right now!
Thank you for sharing your heart with us, D’Ann. Hymn lyrics have always been one of my favorite ways to hear God speak. They tug on the heart in such a powerful way. I love that you’ve gone deeper with this one. I, too, had thought of dying with Christ as an act of surrender and self-denial, but I love that you have continued that thought to living a resurrected life here on earth that brings glory to Christ and hope to a hurting world. Beautiful!
Glad that resonated with you, too, Karen. I don’t know what I hadn’t really connected that before in this way, but I love when the Holy Spirit reveals those kinds of things!