Honoring our baptism: How are we called?
First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
Isaiah 12: 1-5; Romans 1: 7-8, 14-17; Mark 1: 1-13
Psalm- Isaiah 12- With Joy You Shall Draw Water (hymnal #148)
Baptism in the early church was not to be taken lightly. Historians tell us that baptism preparation in those days involved about three years of study, spiritual instruction by a mentor, and scrutinizing one’s past life, while resolving to change to a life following the example of Jesus. It required candidates to declare specifically what they would do to help build up the Christian community. In that time of persecution, being baptized could be dangerous, and certainly required bravery. But for those with eyes of faith, choosing baptism was choosing spiritual life, and membership in the community of the God who brought salvation, as it is today.
Our readings today also center on new beginnings and redemption. In the Isaiah passage, we heard how the people of Israel anticipated their new beginning after their exile from their land and their Temple ended. They did not know when that would be, but they were strengthened by the audacious, resilient, defiant Jewish hope that God stands with those the world rejects. The reading tells how, still in the midst of their suffering, they composed the song with which they would celebrate their salvation. We sang it today—“With joy you shall draw water….”
In the epistle, we heard about the young Christian community at Rome, just starting out. Paul praised them for their strong faith, which he said was rooted in belief in the Gospel and which caused justice to arise for all. Paul seemed surprised that God’s word attracted both Jewish and Gentile believers. It makes me wonder—do I sometimes assume incorrectly that people are not interested in learning more about God? Is my focus too narrow?
And we heard about of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, as depicted in the first chapter of the gospel attributed to Mark. We heard about the repentance and faith of the followers of John the Baptist, who were starting new lives of seeking justice and love for all. Jesus and all the others went into the Jordan River intentionally to pledge to love God more, to promise to help the people around them more, to become more aware of why injustice was happening and to protest it and try to implement better, more just systems.
All these people saw God as their deliverer, as the one calling them away from lives of self-centeredness to lives of living for others. In other words, to lives of meaning, of passing along to others the love God offers us.
During Advent, we are called to see God as our deliverer also. God can deliver us from hopelessness. It’s easy to slip in that direction, when we see the war footage from around the world on the news every day, and hear the speeches of politicians who are making ending democracy their express purpose. But we are called to that same audacious hope that Isaiah’s community held onto. We are called to see God in all the threatened, sick, poor, and cold people around us. We are called to solidarity, in this season of hedonism, with all those who suffer. We are called to help in any way we can, be it locally, or around the world. As Fr. Daniel Horan said in the National Catholic Reporter this week,
“Advent is a time to remember that God entered this world uncoerced and willingly, and that Christ's arrival as a vulnerable child is an act of solidarity with all people, but especially with those who are in the most precarious positions in society… (Our) hope is tied to the sober awareness that God does not call us to flee from this imperfect and hurting world but to enter more deeply into it as we strive to work for social justice and peace after the example of Jesus Christ.”
I don’t think God expects any of us to solve all the problems we see, but she does want us to do something, to at least pray for people, maybe to contribute financially, maybe to write our legislators, at least to speak up in protest, and to do even more if we can. I always believe that grounding ourselves in prayer is the best way to discern what God’s call entails. This season of cold and dark and quiet is a good time for prayer. The prerequisites for our baptisms were certainly not as strenuous as for those of the early Christians. But that does not mean that we should not, this Advent, commit to honoring our baptism by studying the injustice in our world and playing some part in ending it.
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