Stay awake, be prepared. Be ready for the day when Christ comes — the day of resurrection when all flesh will be raised and we will behold God in his flesh once more.

But how can we prepare ourselves for that day?

How do you practice for the big game or main event?

You practice hours upon hours until it becomes regular and ordinary — just the way you naturally do things.

We practice for the day of resurrection every single day. Each night we lay ourselves down to rest.

In the Old Testament, Hebrew people actually began their day when the sun went down. What we think of as the end of the day was their beginning.

In the creation account, each day had “evening and then morning.”

If we think about beginning our day at night, we start each day by laying ourselves down in bed, so the first thing we do is rise up again, anew.

Every single day, we practice laying ourselves into the grave to rest and sleep until we rise again to new life, new light, a new day — something recreated, similar to what it was before but different, something new.

Each day we emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity.

That is resurrection, but that’s also exactly what your baptism indicates.

Each day we die and we rise.

We practice over and over so that when the final day comes; it won’t be completely unexpected and unknown, but something we’re ready for.

As that great hymn says, we will “fear our grave as little as we fear our bed.”

We look forward to rising up to a new day, a new creation, living each day with that reminder that we are crucified with Christ, raised again, and will rise to have eternal life in his kingdom.

Contributor Brett Simek is the pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church Rantoul, in Hilbert, WI.

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