![]() Jesus’ message in the gospel reading is radical, provocative, and divisive. It almost makes us think that this particular message is not a good way to introduce Christian faith to someone new to our tradition. Maybe we hope they don't hear today’s gospel message. One good thing, which I think is positive, is that it stirs us up! Jesus is here to kindle a fire. He’s to bring division, not peace, particularly among family members. He gives an example of five family members in one household. Three against two and two against three: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. I drew a picture of this family genogram, hoping it will help us see a clearer picture of this family division Jesus is talking about. At first, it looks like this is an individual dispute with one another: father vs. son, mother vs. daughter, and mother vs. daughter-in-law. But there’s more to this. There are two notable patterns we can see in the genogram. First, there’s this pattern of man vs. man, and woman vs. woman, never man vs. woman. Second, there’s a generational conflict. In both patterns, what we can guess is that whatever values are handed down from the parents’ generation is not accepted by the next generation. Something has shifted from generation to generation. In the midst of these conflicts, there are these dotted lines in between genders and generations. You see that dotted line in between two generations as well as in between men and women? I want to say that the crossing point between two dotted lines is where Jesus happens. So what’s Jesus doing there? What's happening there? Jesus tells his disciples that it’s “baptism, with which to be baptized.” This saying of Jesus is actually puzzling because he was already baptized in the 3rd chapter of St. Luke’s gospel (3:21-22). Then what does he mean that he has a “baptism, with which to be baptized?” Throughout the entire Christian Scriptures, there is only one thing that Jesus and all his disciples strive for and point to us. Always only one thing! It’s death and resurrection. This is the essential teaching of the Christian faith. Although Jesus was ritually baptized by John the baptizer earlier, the reality that makes his baptism come true didn’t take place yet. He still had to go through what that baptism meant, what he actually signed up for. So, the baptism Jesus talks about in today’s gospel is his own death and resurrection. This baptism of death and resurrection brings fire and division, not peace! The word “baptism” comes from the Greek word, “baptizein.” It means to immerse, or to dip. When Jesus talks about his baptism, we have this image of him immersing or dipping into suffering and death. We think about his passion and death on the cross. We think about his agony to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He is drowned and swamped all the way down to the hell. By going towards suffering and death, Jesus makes God available in every level of our human life, even in the darkest moment of our life. Dipping into this suffering and death is not the end of Jesus’ baptism. He rises above. He is resurrected. God’s grace and compassion lifts him back above the water. In his resurrection, we are too resurrected. Our humanity is restored, renewed, and recreated. In our traditional language, this is often described as rebirth, or born-again. In baptism, we are born again, not just once, but over and over again. We’re perpetually regenerated throughout our lifespan to be another Christ, alter Christus. How many of you remember your baptism? If you were baptized as an infant, you probably wouldn’t remember anything. If you do, it probably is like the picture! I, for example, clearly remember my baptism. It wasn’t so dramatic. Sprinkles of water were dropped over my head. And that was it! I must admit, it was quite disappointing! The Early Church handled baptism very differently from us. It was seriously taken with reverence and rigor. A baptismal candidate was stripped naked, and was immersed into the water, not warm, but cold! Then, he was vested in an alb, the white robe servers wear. It meant the washing of one’s sins, but also a new creation clothed into that person as God’s child. Then follows the anointing of oil, chrism. No instructions were given to the one who was to be baptized. The person is simply to experience all of this without any explanation. Considering that the early Christians were mostly adults, they could never forget this sacred experience at their baptism. And the catechism usually took about 3 years! They really had to wait and wait to be baptized! And it was risking their life under the Roman persecution. Most of us might not have this shocking and memorable experience of baptism. This doesn’t mean we got something less of what the Early Christian received. It’s the same baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. What we are called to do in common with the Early Church is to live it out. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams reminds us what we have signed up for in our baptism! “...baptism as a ritual for joining the Christian community was associated with the idea of going down into the darkness of Jesus’ suffering and death, being ‘swamped’ by the reality of what Jesus endured...We are…’‘dropped’ into that mysterious event which Christians commemorate on Good Friday, and, more regularly, in the breaking of bread at Holy Communion.” (Being Christian, pp. 1-2) Being baptized then does not mean that we’ll live happily ever after. It means we as baptized are to face not only the suffering and death of Jesus, but of our neighbors, of our community, and of our world. We as baptized must be found in the midst of suffering and death. And in that midst, we also discover God’s love and compassion at the greatest level. This is the most mysterious part of our Christian faith. In the midst of despair, hope springs. In the midst of suffering, healing is born. In the midst of the evil, God’s holiness breaks in. In our baptism, whether we knew it or not, we are jumping into that Jesus’ dark “dipping” hole! And we’re not doing it individually, but as church in solidarity with one another. At the baptism of Jesus, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” At every baptism, including our own, through Jesus’ baptism, meaning his death and resurrection, a voice comes from heaven, “You are my daughter, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Once we are swamped into that dipping hole of the dazzling darkness, and are risen above from it, we no longer go back to our old and comfortable structures, and our biological family system being one of them! How we relate with each other must change! How we look at each other changes! And in the Eucharist in which we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we are interwoven to one another in the most sacred way. When we look at that dark, dazzling hole of Jesus’ baptismal mystery, not only we jump into that, but also see the Body of Christ we receive at the Eucharist. I pray, may God grant us courage and trust, ...that we are so willingly and constantly jump into that dazzling dark hole of Jesus’ baptism! ...that we find ourselves, that God finds us in the suffering of our neighbors where we also experience the unending love of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. ...that in the Eucharist we once again become partakers of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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