Sneaky Fitch
Originally scheduled for August 28
Romans 6:9-11 NIV For we
know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die
again; death no longer has mastery over him. (10) The death he died,
he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
(11) In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God
in Christ Jesus.
A staple of
high school drama departments, and many other stage companies, is a
play entitled the death and
life of Sneaky Fitch. I’ll let the narrator introduce you to
Sneaky:
“Who-or what-is Sneaky Fitch? I'll tell you. He's the town bum of
Western myth and folklore. But Sneaky is not content to be the
lovable, ideal town bum of Western myth and folklore. Oh, no. He's a
real bum! He is the most lily-livered, yellow-bellied,
good-for-nothing, low-down, rotten-clean-through, miserable polecat
that ever walked the face of the West! And that ain’t the half of
it!”
In the course
of this comedy, almost at the beginning, we find that Sneaky appears
to be dead, to no one’s regret. The undertaker lays him in a coffin
at the end of the day, thinking to come back the next morning and
finish the job. Fitch does not have the decency to actually be dead,
and in due course he wakes up. He heads to the town bar and
discovers that everyone there is absolutely terrified of him. The
reason is simple: Fitch is dead, and you can’t kill a dead man
again. In the gunslinging West a man who has died and risen is
invincible — and Fitch takes every advantage of this.
The key
point, for us, is the fact that once a person is dead then death has
no further hold on him. St. Paul makes the same point in our passage
today. Christ died; and by the power of the Holy Spirit he was
raised from the dead. He cannot die again, and therefore death has
no hold on him. He then draws the parallel with the Christian: you
are to consider your self dead to sin, having died in Christ, but
alive to God. The act of baptism is the ceremonial acceptance of the
death of Christ in your life; you are buried with Christ and rise to
walk in a new life.
Communion is
the memorial of Christ’s death. We certainly should remember his
sacrifice in doing this, but we should also remember that we too
have died — to sin. We do this by participating in his death, of
which communion is a reminder. We are dead to sin because of
Christ’s death. It is therefore no accident that we are told that we
are to examine ourselves before we take communion. Are we indeed
dead to sin? If not, what steps should we take in response? Ponder
the sin in your life, and give thought to how you will repent and
indeed be dead to sin.
