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The Water Was Refreshing

Well, friends, my computer is down and out so I'm composing this on my phone. I'd ask your prayers but you won't read the request until whatever typo filled, badly formatted excuse for an article is before your eyes.

This coming Sunday's lessons are no less daunting than last week’s, which were heavy with warnings of the rejection and even persecution likely to be faced by Godly people.

This week continues to lay out a spiritual path marked with struggles. Twice in a short passage from Isaiah, the Prophet warns,

The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day… (2:11)

Jesus warns that his message is a sword that will cut his followers off even from their families, and that we are to lug along this pain just as he carried his cross,

And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:36-38)

But as was true in last week's readings, this week's contain words of hope to keep us going in the way of the cross.

Jesus sweetens his bitter word about family divisions, telling us that others who welcome us are in fact receiving God. Those who show us the littlest kindnesses as we stumble under our crosses will be rewarded by God. (10:40-42)

We also get a selection from Psalm 89, telling us that our long walk can be filled with exuberance, of all qualities, as we celebrate God as our companion and refreshment.

Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face, who exult in your name all the day and in your righteousness are exalted. (89:15)

Our journey gains this light, righteousness and exaltation right at the start, with a scary passage through water, which turns out to be the great first step on our path. The Apostle Paul lays out his mystical teaching on our baptism in Romans 6,

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (6:3-5)

Paul tells us that in the waters of baptism we were spiritually united with Christ, our sins nailed to his cross, our old identity buried and the glory of the Father raising us to walk in newness of life.

I believe that Paul gained this insight by his own mystical journey through Christ's death and resurrection. On a road trip to round up and imprison Christians, Paul (then known as Saul of Tarsus) was stopped by heavenly light and the voice of Christ.

Saul was blinded, and had to complete the road to Damascus led by the hand, as Jesus had walked up Calvary under escort from Roman soldiers.

Then Saul shared Christ’s “death” and tomb,

 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. (Acts 9:9)

He was set in a strange room, unseeing and taking no sustenance, as though dead. And he was like this…

for three days.

On the third day, Christ sent a disciple to the “tomb,”

And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized;  and taking food, he was strengthened. (9:17-19)

Saul walked a path on which he was powerless, was sealed up in darkness for three days, then rose and received new life in Christ through baptism. This personal encounter with Christ, I believe, is the source of his later writing as Paul, describing our baptism as a literal union with Christ’s death and resurrection - not a rational or symbolic explanation but a mystical reality.

Keep going. It's not an easy walk through life as a Christian, but that first draught of living water way back when is still hydrating us and refreshing us.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.