1124: Baptism: The Risen Christ accompanies us as we set out on the road together
Day 1124: Friday, April 14, 2023
The Risen Christ accompanies us as we set out on the road together. The time has come to renew our baptismal promises.
Our dear friend Jim Fredericks wrote this reflection for Easter. It's his homily delivered at St. Leo's all about Baptism. I saved it and savored it. Enjoy!
It begins with the Gospel reading from Matthew:
After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men.
Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid!
I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.
He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee;
there you will see him.’ Behold, I have told you.”
Then they went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce this to his disciples.
And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them.
They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.
Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
HOMILY ON THE READINGS
Happy Easter to you all…
In keeping with the ancient tradition of the Church, my homily tonight will be a baptismal instruction.
In the early days of the Church, Baptism was celebrated on only one night during the whole year – the Vigil Mass of the Lord’s Resurrection. At the Easter Vigil, the catechumens were clothed in a white garment and brought before the bishop. The bishop’s homily was an instruction about the life of faith that begins for us all in our Baptism.
After his homily, the catechumens would make their baptismal promises and then the bishop would witness the renewal of the baptismal promises of the whole assembly.
This is what we will do tonight.
My first instruction is this: in putting our Baptism into practice, we are to be like the holy women in tonight’s Gospel.
After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
These are the women who stood at the foot of the cross and wept as they witnessed the humiliation of their beloved rabbi. The body of Jesus was quickly taken down from the cross and hurriedly placed in a tomb because it was near sundown and the Sabbath was beginning. Now, at dawn on Sunday, the sabbath over, these same holy women went to the tomb to anoint the crucified body of the Messiah.
This is what we are to do. Like the holy women in tonight’s Gospel, our practice of faith must be to serve the needs of our community even as we grieve our loss with despair and confusion.
This is what it means to be baptized.
My second instruction is this: in putting our Baptism into practice, we must not be afraid. Remember what happened when the angel appeared,
The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men.
Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid!
The guards are shaken with fear. But the women are commanded to put their fear aside. They will not anoint the body of their rabbi. They will be given another task to fulfill.
Those of us who are baptized are not to be afraid. But my instruction is ladened with irony. Human life is riddled with fear. Fear drives us to do all the terrible things human beings do. And we must understand that God never intended us to be fearful. We have become something other than what God intended.
So, when the angel says to the holy women, “Do not be afraid,” he is commanding us to be the creature that God originally created us to be.
And, this we cannot do. We do not have the power to be the creature God created us to be, innocent of fear.
Therefore, the life of faith that unfolds for us in putting our Baptism into practice means that we must become witnesses to a fundamental truth: the Risen Christ is transforming the fear that haunts our souls into a New Life – indeed, a new kind of life, a resurrected life.
To be baptized means that we have become the Church. We have become those who stand within the world as witnesses that God is raising sinful human beings up out of the tomb of their fear into a New Life.
This leads to a third teaching about our Baptism.
After commanding the women to put aside their fear,
the angel goes on to say,
I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised up just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ Behold, I have told you.”
The women are at the tomb of Jesus, outside the walls of Jerusalem. Galilee is far away, in the boondocks, well beyond Samaritan country. Galilee is what Pope Francis
likes to call “the margins.”
Tonight, my third instruction to you echoes the teaching of Pope Francis: in putting our Baptism into practice, we must not be afraid to go to the margins.
I mean this in two different ways.
We must not be afraid to go to the margins of our souls to look at the darkness within us and to wrestle with what is not yet redeemed in our hearts. For there, in the margins of our souls we will encounter the Risen Christ.
We must not be afraid to go to the margins of our society either – to the homes of the poor and dispossessed, the forgotten and despised, the exiled and those seeking refuge. Here again is where we will encounter the Risen Christ.
And my last instruction about how we are to put our Baptism into practice is the Good News itself.
The women, in the obedience of faith, like Father Abraham of old, set out on the road together. The women begin their journey to Galilee where they hope to meet the Risen One.
And the Good News is just this: at the very moment of setting out in the hope of encountering the Risen Christ, the Savior appears to the women on the road itself.
And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.
The women, John tells us, were “fearful and overjoyed.”
The Risen One appears to us as we make our way to the margins. To our astonishment, he appears to us as we set out on the road together, even before we reach the margins. The Risen Christ accompanies us as we set out on the road together.
This is what it means to be baptized.
Happy Easter to you all.
The time has come to renew our baptismal promises.