Lifted from the mud by Christ’s mercy

Fr David Howell

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“I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50)

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus yearns for his next baptism, namely his death and resurrection. The word “baptism” literally means “immersion,” and so Jesus was to be immersed in the tomb of death before rising from it, just as he had been plunged into the Jordan’s waters by John the Baptist.

In the first reading, Jeremiah was immersed in the mud of the cistern before being rescued, as the psalm (40) describes: “He drew me from the deadly pit, from the miry clay.”

We too can sink into the mud of our sins and need to be rescued, like Jeremiah from the cistern and Jesus from the tomb. Sin, like mud, clings to us, as we hear in the second reading: “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely” (Hebrews 12:1). What disordered attachments are weighing me down? Am I ready to put God before everything else, even my family? If we try to free ourselves by treading in the mud, it only makes things worse: we are called instead to surrender ourselves to God, who alone can save us.

In other words, let us shift our focus from ourselves and our sins to Jesus: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). He himself kept his eyes fixed on his coming resurrection so that he could embrace his suffering: “for the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, despising the shame [of it]” (Hebrews 12:2).

We can ask ourselves: do I look more at my wretchedness than at Jesus and his joy? If I am patient, he will reach down and lift me up, as the psalmist sang: “I waited, I waited for the LORD, and he stooped down to me. He heard my cry.” Only Jesus can raise us from our immersion in sin and death, through his own dying and rising.

Jesus raises us through his Holy Spirit, the divine fire which he came to cast upon the earth. And he desires to lift us up with him to heaven, just as he carried up Mary his mother in her bodily Assumption: he could not wait to have her with him.

‍

“I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50)

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus yearns for his next baptism, namely his death and resurrection. The word “baptism” literally means “immersion,” and so Jesus was to be immersed in the tomb of death before rising from it, just as he had been plunged into the Jordan’s waters by John the Baptist.

In the first reading, Jeremiah was immersed in the mud of the cistern before being rescued, as the psalm (40) describes: “He drew me from the deadly pit, from the miry clay.”

We too can sink into the mud of our sins and need to be rescued, like Jeremiah from the cistern and Jesus from the tomb. Sin, like mud, clings to us, as we hear in the second reading: “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely” (Hebrews 12:1). What disordered attachments are weighing me down? Am I ready to put God before everything else, even my family? If we try to free ourselves by treading in the mud, it only makes things worse: we are called instead to surrender ourselves to God, who alone can save us.

In other words, let us shift our focus from ourselves and our sins to Jesus: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). He himself kept his eyes fixed on his coming resurrection so that he could embrace his suffering: “for the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, despising the shame [of it]” (Hebrews 12:2).

We can ask ourselves: do I look more at my wretchedness than at Jesus and his joy? If I am patient, he will reach down and lift me up, as the psalmist sang: “I waited, I waited for the LORD, and he stooped down to me. He heard my cry.” Only Jesus can raise us from our immersion in sin and death, through his own dying and rising.

Jesus raises us through his Holy Spirit, the divine fire which he came to cast upon the earth. And he desires to lift us up with him to heaven, just as he carried up Mary his mother in her bodily Assumption: he could not wait to have her with him.

‍

Fr David Howell

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