We are called to take up the cross
Through baptism, we are called into suffering so we may reign with Jesus
October 22, 2006 -- 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Michael Stubbs
"When you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your original goal was to drain the swamp." That saying sometimes pops into my mind when I feel overwhelmed by work or worries. Or I might just say that I feel swamped.
Swamped. Jesus would have said, "baptized." That's the meaning which lies behind his question in Sunday's gospel reading, "Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"
Jesus is not speaking about baptism in the sense of a sacrament. Rather, Jesus is using it in its original meaning of immersion. It is a metaphor to describe the sufferings that he faces. Jesus is challenging the disciples to see if they are willing to share those same woes with him.
We might compare Luke 12:50, where Jesus speaks in a similar way. "There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished." Jesus is looking forward to the great ordeal which will culminate in his death on the cross.
In his metaphor of baptism, Jesus continues a long tradition of the Bible's use of the image of immersion in water to signify painful calamities. We see that frequently in the Psalms. "Had the LORD not been with us, when people rose against us, they would have swallowed us alive, for their fury blazed against us. The waters would have engulfed us, the torrent overwhelmed us; seething waters would have drowned us." (Ps. 124:2,3,4) "Reach out your hand from on high; deliver me from the many waters; rescue me from the hands of foreign foes." (Ps. 144:7)
In speaking of baptism, Jesus is not referring to his own earlier baptism in the Jordan River at the hands of John the Baptist. Jesus had undergone that ritual action to indicate his solidarity with John's message. For Jesus specifically and in retrospect, we can view that event as a subtle allusion to his future passion and death. But for John, baptism meant God's forgiveness, the washing away of sin.
In speaking to his disciples about baptism, Jesus is not inviting them to troop down to the Jordan River to take part in that symbolic ceremony. At this point in the gospel, John the Baptist had already been beheaded by Herod. (Mark 6:17-29). The disciples of John the Baptist might have continued the practice of baptism, but Jesus does not appear to be referring to it here.
Rather, Jesus is calling his disciples to recognize the full implications of his mission. They have looked forward to the rewards, without noticing what that mission will cost. If they wish to reign with him, they must first take up the cross.
Jesus issues the same challenge and the same invitation to us. And for us, Jesus' metaphor of baptism to describe immersion into suffering and calamity brings out the meaning of our own sacramental baptism. Through that ritual event, we receive the call to take up the cross of Christ, so that we also might eventually reign with him in glory. The next time you feel swamped, remember that.
(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)
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