Dead or Alive

Being just two weeks away from Halloween, more skeletons are turning up as lawn ornaments on my daily walks through our neighborhood. Bones dangling from green tree branches and skulls peering out from the grass have earned the term decoration. Death resurfaces, becomes normalized, and gets celebrated.

And death can resurface in our spiritual life, Colossians 3:1-11 tells us. Remains that have been buried, because they’re old and dead, rear their ugly head. Skeletons in the closet creep out to the front yard and become socially acceptable, even celebrated:

Immorality

Impurity

Passion

Evil desire

Covetousness

Idolatry

Anger

Wrath

Malice

Slander

Obscene talk

Lies

Racism

Elitism 

Legalism

Any of these that may have once been a part of my way of life, my culture, my natural responses, my worldview, and my social status, belong to someone who is actually dead. If I’m raised with Christ, then that means I died, so I put these remnants of death in the grave, not in storage.