The Vineyard Church

It was the end of October 1974 when I decided to get baptized. I was a teenager, a prodigal that saw no other way to be done with the past then to enter the ice-covered waters of Caesar Creek’s streams. These waters and nearby paths were trails blazed by Tecumseh and Daniel Boone, a heritage I thought somehow was being passed to me, and I was about to leave my mark on those waters in my own unique way. Two reverends came out for the occasion in rubber overalls and Wellingtons wondering if I had lost my mind. They asked more than once if I really wanted to do this, which seemed strange at the time as I pondered why two preachers would not being anxious to see this transformation take place. With ice on the ground, I could appreciate their hesitation. In all my foolishness, I knew this was one of those times in life when I could not wait for the weather to break.

As I stepped into the waters, I could not feel my legs, the water was that cold. By the time I was dunked under, I could not feel anything. It was the most numbing, isolated sensation I had ever experienced. When I rose up out of the Ceasar Creek waters I had a natural as well as spiritual sense of newness of life. It was as if heaven and earth met, like two worlds coming together under October skies that left a life-long impression on a country girl from the Midwest.

When I read about the death and resurrection of Christ in Mark 15-16 it brings back those days of what I laid down, but even more what Christ laid down for me. It has taken me a life-time to understand that the cross was death to Christ but life to me. So often I have walked a path of thinking that my death in baptism was paying for something. It is Christ alone who bore my sin so that I can live a life in the spirit. As it reads in the passage of 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.”

Christ was mocked, abandoned by friends and those who loved Him. He took on all that was corruptible in this world in order for us to have a new DNA that would graft us into a kingdom of beauty, love, and a life of abundance. I “die daily” to the old self that believed I was unworthy, that my nature was inescapable, that life was about the survival of the fittest and that people only love by conditions. The more I die out to old forms, the more I see the nature and power of Christ come to life in me. How remarkable!

I appreciate how Paul responds to this mystery in 1 Corinthians 15:10: "But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain….” I couldn’t agree more. We are made new in Christ, and we are what we are because of Him, not because of our own abilities and strengths. As we grow and experience the transforming power of His resurrection, we move toward a life of kingdom thinking and living, which is our new inheritance. Within this new realm we receive gifts as it says in 1 Corinthians 14. We have the privilege to use these to edify, exhort and comfort those around us.

We are all sojourners, trailblazing a path to show others what Christ has done to transform our lives. We share a common heritage and a command to "go out into the world." As you share your own story of the Lord’s transforming power through His death and resurrection, may He set your heart on a pilgrimage to reveal His glory, majesty and wonder.

Blessings,
Rebecca Holihan