Immersed in Christ: Thursday, July 15, 2021

Connected to the Cross

It clarifies things to picture Jesus hanging on the cross at the center of the circle of time. Jesus died in time and space on the hill of Calvary outside Jerusalem, around the year 33 AD. But in reality (God’s reality), his death was and is at the center of time.

When we were baptized, we were baptized “into” that body hanging on the cross at the center of time. We, with all of our sins, were incorporated into his body. He “became sin” for us.

When Jesus died, we died in him. We, with all of our sins, went down into the grave with him, and our sins were annihilated. Then we rose in him and returned to earth to take our place again on the circumference of the circle as a “new creation.”

What happened on Calvary, what happened at our baptism, and what happens in the sacrament of reconciliation are all the same mystery: the mystery of being taken, incorporated, or reintegrated into the body of Jesus on the cross, dying with and in him, and rising with and in him as free of all guilt—as if we had never sinned in our lives.