2 Timothy 2
All the measures we take during this pandemic strive for life. Against this real threat of life, our sense of survival has been ever heightened up. On the flip side of the sense of survival is our awareness of death. We are not so focused on the number of pandemic survivors but the number of deaths. It is death that makes us alert this time.
But Christians have a quite different sense of life and death. If a person wants to be called Christian, he must die to himself in Christ at baptism. He has to give up his previous life. Then, he is raised with Christ. The life he receives at baptism is no longer a life that belongs to this world. It is a new life, but not for this world. Then, what about the death at the end of the life on earth? For Christians, death on earth is a moment of transition. It is not an end but only a change. On earth, Christians strive for the completion of the life they received at baptism. And they hope the completion may occur at their death so that they may enter into the heavenly inheritance forever.
Therefore, for Christians, nothing on earth is meaningful if it is bound only for this world. But everything can be meaningful if it helps them to attain the heavenly goal.
Then, I should ask myself if I live up to the name of Christian. “Why do I take all these precautious measures to prevent infection?”
For us Christians, this life is already dead; death will be our door to true life.
“If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he will also deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself.”
