We all know there are seven days in a week. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.
Jesus, through his perfect life, suffering, and death, fulfills our salvation and dies on the sixth day. On the seventh, he rests in victory.
But the next day is the beginning of something entirely new.
Christ rises from the dead, ushering in a new creation.
The resurrection changes everything, especially for those baptized into Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
For centuries, baptismal fonts have been built with eight sides, which symbolizes this “eighth day,” the day of new creation.
Baptism unites us with Christ and delivers the promise of the resurrected life.
Though we still live in sinful flesh, we are already declared holy and redeemed. We live now in that “not yet” and “already” in which we are marked by Christ, filled with his Spirit, and sustained by his word and sacraments.
Many baptismal fonts and pulpits reflect this with eight sides, reminding us where the Word of life is proclaimed and the Spirit is at work.
Through Word and sacrament, we receive the forgiveness of sins, and on the last day, we will rise to that eternal eighth-day life.
It’s a life where we will no longer need sun or lamp, for Christ himself will be our light.
That day is still to come, but it is also breaking in even now, wherever Christ forgives, renews, and makes us his own.
Contributor Rev. Jason Schockman is Associate Pastor at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Oconomowoc, WI.
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