"Thus was our Lord Jesus made-naught for us; and all we stand in this manner made-naught with Him."
Julian of Norwich (Ch. 18)
All of creation, including all of humanity, is connected to Christ, the source of all created kinds of beings and things. He is the head, source and origin of our kind and is the one holding everything and everyone together in existence. All our being stands or exists in Him. So when He was suffering pain on the cross and dying, He who is the source of our kind and head of our human nature was representing us, and all that happened to Him affected all of us. When Christ dies and His life is 'made naught' as our source and head, we also die and are 'made naught' in Him. In that sense we all died with Christ. And just like Christ left the things of this broken world through death, we too escaped those things through death in Him. We died to sin, pain, suffering, evil, shame, guilt, fear, anxiety and defeat. All that is of the old, worn out, tainted by sin creation has died with Christ. Christ was 'made nought,' and right along with Christ our old self, our old way of living enslaved to sin and confusion, has been 'made nought,' has come to a complete stop and come to nothing. In this way He gave us escape and victory over all the evil, suffering, lies, and confusion that bound us. How amazing that Christ took something as horrible as His death at the hands of His own creation and turned it into a complete victory over sin and evil for His own creation!
For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been set free from sin."
Romans 6:6-7 (NIV)
A Prayer: Thank You for including me in Your death and bringing to death all the wrongs and sufferings that have plagued me. Thank You for bringing me to a place of freedom from those things!