Wednesday | 24 December 2025
‘Burial’ is the next implication of being yoked to Christ. This is the context in which we learn from Him the obedience that belongs to our sonship, and we find rest for our soul. Initially, the context of burial can feel extremely lonely and limiting. However, burial is the context in which we meet Christ, personally. We confess, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death [the place of death and burial], I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.’ Psa 23:4.
The belly of the great fish, where the prophet Jonah found himself after he embraced his death with Christ under the judgement of God, provides a vivid picture of burial. In this place of burial, Jonah prayed, ‘I went down to the moorings of the mountains; the earth with its bars closed behind me forever; yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God.’ Jon 2:6.
‘The moorings of the mountains’ refers to the lowest parts of the earth. It was here that Christ, as the substance of our sonship, fulfilled all the works that belong to our name as a son of God. This happened on the cross during the three hours of great darkness, as He was manifest as ‘I AM’. Joh 8:28. Mat 27:45. Illuminated to this great truth, King David testified, ‘My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skilfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.’ Psa 139:15‑16.
The evidence that we have accepted our burial with Christ is that we come to rest. Even though our circumstances may be constraining and painful, we cease from striving for our own expression, and we accept the limits of our sanctification.
Further Study:
Jonah 2
References:
Psa 23:4
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
Jon 2:6
I went down to the moorings of the mountains; the earth with its bars closed behind me forever; yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD, my God.
Joh 8:28
Then Jesus said to them, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.’
Mat 27:45
Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.
Psa 139:15-16
My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skilfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.