“The Time of Fulfillment” by Rev. Paul Berghout (@FatherPB)
Piety
How shall I make a return to the LORD for all the good he
has done for me? Psalm 116:112
After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee
proclaiming the Gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of
God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” Mark 1:14-15
Study
Sunday was the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. We heard
the Lord say in the first reading from Isaiah, "Here is my servant whom
I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, upon whom I have put my
spirit." Those words echoed into Matthew's Gospel: “This is my
beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Baptism is the feast marking the end of the Christmas
season. Today, the Church begins 34 weeks of "Ordinary Time." These weeks will take the entire liturgical
year outside of the Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter seasons. The first portion of this ordinary time will
continue until Ash Wednesday on February 26.
For the next few weeks, until the beginning of Lent, the
weekday gospels are from Mark. They will
give us a look at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry after his baptism. Jesus
calls his first disciples – a couple of humble fishermen at work: Simon and
Andrew, then James and John. "Then they left their nets and followed
him." He drives out evil spirits and heals the sick (in both spiritual and
biological cleansings).
Ritual cleansings continue bringing Baptism to life in the
coming days as Jesus also hears the cry of the leper: “If you wish, you can
make me clean." Jesus, "moved with pity," heals him. Jesus also extends
an invitation to the despised tax collector, Levi: "Follow me."
All of us baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death. Our old selves
and bad habits also were buried with him so that, just as
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk
in newness of life.
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| By Phil Russell |
Ministers traditionally perform the option of full-immersion
baptism by cradling the convert back into the water as if being buried in the
ground and then lifting them forward as if being raised to new life.
Author King Duncan loves to tell the true story of something
that happened to his grandfather, the Reverend G.F Cox, who was a lay pastor in
the Methodist Church. To appreciate this story, you have to understand that
East Tennessee, where his grandfather preached, is Baptist country. Some people say that even dogs and cats are
Baptists. In the early days, people would join the Methodist church, but the
Baptists had told them that a person could not go to heaven unless they baptized
“all over,” meaning by immersion. Just sprinkling water on someone during the
baptism ritual was not correct to Baptists.
One day, a rather tall lady came to Rev. Cox wanting to join
the Methodist church, but first, she wanted to be baptized by full immersion,
“just in case the Baptists are right,” she said. Rev. Cox said that would be
fine. So, they scheduled a time for the church to gather down by the river for
what must have been a most beautiful and meaningful occasion. What happened on
this occasion, however, was a little unexpected and just a bit ridiculous.
The river was quite shallow that summer, and as already
noted, the lady was rather tall. To complicate matters, she also wore her hair
in a top knot, a fashionable hairdo in which the hair appeared to spiral upward
on a lady’s head for another 8-10 inches.
Think of Marge Simpson and you’ll get the gist. So, this lady must have
approached 7 feet tall, top knot and all, and Rev. Cox was a rather short man.
So, mightily he labored easing this statuesque lady (with
the top knot) backward into a shallow river. As she made her entry into the
chilly waters, she did what most of us would do – she jerked her head forward
until her chin nearly rested on her chest. This motion, in turn, kept her
topknot from going under the water.
Triumphantly Rev. Cox lifted her from the water and stood
her upright as the choir sang the last verse of “Shall We Gather at the River.”
He had already started moving toward the bank of the river when she stopped
him. “My hair is still dry. I’m sorry, Brother Cox. You’ll have to do it
again.” I guess she didn’t want to go to heaven without her topknot.
So, with a prayer for patience muttered under his breath,
Rev Cox braced himself to lower her into the water again. Speculation ran
through the congregation gathered on the shore as to why he was repeating the
baptism. One time is usually good enough. Gently the Reverend lowered her back
into the water. Again, as soon as she entered the chilly water, she pulled her
head forward as a reaction to the chilly water and her topknot stuck defiantly
out of the water. So, they had to try a third time. This time, the good
reverend put his left hand on the lady's forehead to make sure the topknot went
under the water. Finally, it worked.
The people on the bank had finally figured out what was
happening and were laughing. They would never forget the lady with the topknot
who wanted to be baptized all over.
The moral of the story -- It’s interesting,” wrote Rev. Cox,
some years later, “most of us are not like that lady. We do not want to be
baptized that completely. Most of us want to leave something out when we are
baptized – our money, our habits, our moral inclination, whatever it may be.”
He makes a good observation. After John baptized Jesus, Satan
tested our Savior in the wilderness. You’ll feel the pull of going back to the
self-centered life you once lived. But in your baptism, you died to your old
life and came alive to the new life that reflects God’s Spirit and God’s will.
In Romans 6:6, St. Paul wrote that “our old man [or old
self] was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with.” Paul
also talked about putting “to death the parts of you that are earthly:
fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is
idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language. He says, “Do not
lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have
put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him
who created him.”
Here is a second illustration of being buried with Christ in
baptism to rise with Him:
Margaret Burks, a retired missionary from Tanzania, told of
a baptism she'd watched in East Africa. Some new believers followed the minister
into a river that had nearly dried up in the summer drought. The water was so
shallow that the missionary had to scoop out a place with his hands in the
deepest portion of the river. There, if the converts sat in the sand, there was
just enough water to lower them below the water. The ceremony continued, and
Margaret watched from a distance.
 |
| By Phil Russell |
When the missionary baptized a boy in the shallow water, the
child came up out of the ceremony, shouting, "I'm alive! I'm alive! I'm
alive!"
When the missionary asked the boy what he was doing, he
explained that when the minister said people were "buried with Christ in
the waters of baptism," he thought people physically died through the
process.
Those listening to the story chuckled at the child's
misunderstanding – until she asked us a haunting question. "That child
thought that baptism would kill him, and yet he was willing to go through the
process. Would you have done the same?"
I once heard a preacher who said, “My old man has died with
Christ in baptism, but sometimes the devil does CPR and manages to resuscitate
him.”
Jesus did not need baptism. He did it to show us the
attitude of obedience, faith, and willingness that God desires for us. Jesus got baptized to identify with us whom
he came to save.
As Catholics, we believe that baptism is necessary for
salvation (Catechism 1257). Protestants do not share this belief.
In John 3:5: "Jesus answered, 'Very truly I tell you,
no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the
Spirit."
Don’t be tricked. Jesus does NOT say that you must be born
of water THEN born of the spirit. He
says you must be born again of water and the spirit. As Catholics, we believe
that the born-again experience IS baptism.
The first Christians, as the historical record makes very
clear, baptized babies when they were eight days old or even sooner.
No Bible verse says “baptize infants” just as there is no
Bible verse that says “do not baptize infants.” The baptizing of infants comes
from early Authoritative Catholic Christian Tradition.
Action
This Ordinary Time is the time when we live out our
Baptismal promises day by day.
The real question of “Are you born-again” is really “Have
you had a personal affective experience” of having spiritually met Jesus?
Be able to dunk all of yourself when temptations or traps
come your way so that all of you get buried with Christ, and you can arise and
live victoriously in the Risen Lord Jesus.
Amen.
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