04-01-2014, 09:46 AM
RENEWAL OF OUR BAPTISM AS A CALL TO INSERT OURSELVES INTO THE PASCHAL MYSTERY
SCRIPTURE READINGS: EZ 47:1-9, 12; JN 5:1-3, 5-16
http://www.universalis.com/20140401/mass.htm
As we enter into the second half of the Lenten Season, the liturgy focuses more and more on the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord. Indeed, in the opening prayer, we pray specifically that we may embrace the paschal mystery. This focus is highlighted in the next three weeks. We see the growing hostility against Jesus. The story of the blind man yesterday demonstrated the increasing tension between the Pharisees and Jesus. Today, the gospel ended with the remark that “it was because he did things like this on the Sabbath that the Jews began to persecute Jesus.” Over the days to come, such confrontations will become more frequent and hostile.
But what has this enmity against Jesus got to do with the theme of water and baptism? Precisely, the paschal mystery is closely associated with the Sacrament of Baptism. Baptism can give us new life only when we are inserted into the paschal mystery of Christ. Hence, the Church invites us to be conscious of our baptismal calling and dignity.
From the outset, it is important to see how the two readings are connected. The liturgy wants to establish the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Ezekiel. In the historical context of the prophecy of Ezekiel, the Israelites were in exile and they were hoping for the reconstruction of the Temple. They felt abandoned and lost. Nevertheless, the angel led the prophet to the temple where he saw a stream flowing from under the right side of the Temple, south of the altar. This water irrigates the banks of the river, bringing life to all creatures and the tree-bearing fruits. The Temple is clearly the symbol of God’s presence. So Ezekiel gave hope to the people in exile. In the gospel, we have the story of a paralyzed man waiting at the pool. He has been waiting for thirty-eight years for an opportunity to enter the pool, for it is believed that whoever enters the pool first when the angel comes to stir the water would be healed. The man, paralyzed by his sins, symbolized the Israelites in the desert for forty years.
It is in this setting that Jesus entered the Temple. In entering the Temple, He is claiming to be the presence of God. He is the new Temple replacing the Old Temple of Jerusalem, which was destroyed during the time of the exile. Jesus came as the Saviour, for there were many people lying there with all kinds of sicknesses. They were people without hope, personified by the paralyzed man. They were all waiting for a saviour to deliver them.
So, Jesus came to the sick man and healed him. However He did not cure him by touching him. Nay, He healed him by a word and a command, “Pick up your mat and walk.” In other words, Jesus showed Himself to be the Word of God. The context of the pool implies that Jesus had come to give us life through the Holy Spirit, since water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, that Jesus worked the miracle on the Sabbath implies that Jesus is identified with the Father. This is because God rested on the seventh day after creation. Although He rested, He continued to sustain creation by His presence and love. So by performing a miracle on the Sabbath, Jesus implicitly is claiming to be God, since like Him, He continues to give life to the people even on the Sabbath. He does not stop giving life since He is God.
When we place all these three elements together, we have actually the work of the Trinity in our salvation, since we have the Spirit symbolized by the Water, Jesus as the Word of the Father and the Father Himself who works through Jesus. This means that Jesus is the One who comes to engulf us in the life and presence of the Trinity by giving us His Spirit and reconciling us with the Father. The Sacrament of Baptism is the way by which we can share in the Trinitarian life of God.
Hence, it is clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Ezekiel. But Jesus has come to deliver us from our misery and sinfulness. Through the Sacrament of Baptism, Jesus gives life and restores us to wholeness. Jesus, as the living water, comes to cleanse us from our sins; and as the Word of life, gives us new life, for in baptism we are incorporated into Him.
However, although Jesus is the living water that comes to give us life, He requires our cooperation. Just as He asked the sick man, “Do you want to be well again?” He is asking us whether we really want to be saved and be restored to wholeness. In other words, for baptism to be effective in our lives, we are urged to reexamine whether we really desire to live the life of Christ.
Thus, baptism presupposes a genuine repentance. We must be sincere that we truly want to get well; that we want to rid ourselves of our sins and all that paralyzes us from living a good and happy life. For unless we are clear that it is our sins that make us unable to walk, to live, to love, then we will not want to change and be transformed. Clearly, then, repentance is the prerequisite for new life. Repentance would mean that we sincerely wish to die to our sins, which in reality is sharing in the passion and death of our Lord.
Secondly, baptism presupposes faith. It is the faith of the man in Jesus that enabled him to walk. By submitting in faith to Jesus who said to him, “Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk”, he was “cured at once, and he picked up his mat and walked away.” So faith is another condition for the new life that Jesus comes to give us. Faith leads to obedience. Unless we have faith in Jesus, we cannot surrender our lives to Him and hence this new life cannot be ours.
Thirdly, Jesus reminds us, “now you are well again, be sure not to sin any more, or something worse may happen to you.” Like the sick man who was healed, we can lose Jesus in the crowd. Because of our preoccupations with so many things in life, we can lose Jesus in the midst of our daily activities. Yes, it is important to realize that we can lose the new life given to us at baptism if we fall into sin. By allowing sin to reign in our lives, something worse might happen to us because we are rejecting something essential.
How then can we recover our faith in Jesus? We are told that like the man who was healed, it is necessary to grow in knowledge of Jesus. The man who was healed “had no idea” who Jesus was. We must therefore take the necessary step to rediscover Jesus in our lives. We need a re-evangelization, to hear the Good News again so that we might have a deep faith in Jesus as the life-giver. If we truly want to find Him again, then Jesus will reappear to us, just as He did when the man who was healed lost Him almost immediately after being given new life by Jesus. Hence, we must pray for the gift of sight so that we can turn to Jesus again.
The worst thing that can happen to us is that we are can fall into the same sin of the Pharisees. Like them, we can be so blind that we do not even see that we are blind. This remains a constant temptation for us, as quite often we forget how sinful we are. Consciously or unconsciously, we explain our sins and weaknesses away and justify what we do and cover up our sins. Instead of being humble like the sick man and admit that we need help to grow in our spiritual life and a personal relationship with Jesus, we try to cover up our lack of personal knowledge of Jesus by relying on doctrines and rituals or engage in debate and discussion on such matters, like the Pharisees who avoided confronting themselves by finding fault with those who break the Sabbath Law.
If we do that, greater is our guilt. As Jesus said in yesterday’s gospel, “But since you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” Yes, the greatest danger is that we might not see the need for a real conversion in our lives. We are so blind that we do not even see our sinfulness and wretchedness. As a result, like the Pharisees, we will not be able to have a share of the New life promised to us at Easter since we have not lived out the paschal mystery, our baptismal calling, by dying to sin and rising with Christ. Let us pray for the gift of openness to conversion so that we can truly embrace the Paschal Mystery in our lives.
Written by The Most Rev Msgr William Goh
SCRIPTURE READINGS: EZ 47:1-9, 12; JN 5:1-3, 5-16
http://www.universalis.com/20140401/mass.htm
As we enter into the second half of the Lenten Season, the liturgy focuses more and more on the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord. Indeed, in the opening prayer, we pray specifically that we may embrace the paschal mystery. This focus is highlighted in the next three weeks. We see the growing hostility against Jesus. The story of the blind man yesterday demonstrated the increasing tension between the Pharisees and Jesus. Today, the gospel ended with the remark that “it was because he did things like this on the Sabbath that the Jews began to persecute Jesus.” Over the days to come, such confrontations will become more frequent and hostile.
But what has this enmity against Jesus got to do with the theme of water and baptism? Precisely, the paschal mystery is closely associated with the Sacrament of Baptism. Baptism can give us new life only when we are inserted into the paschal mystery of Christ. Hence, the Church invites us to be conscious of our baptismal calling and dignity.
From the outset, it is important to see how the two readings are connected. The liturgy wants to establish the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Ezekiel. In the historical context of the prophecy of Ezekiel, the Israelites were in exile and they were hoping for the reconstruction of the Temple. They felt abandoned and lost. Nevertheless, the angel led the prophet to the temple where he saw a stream flowing from under the right side of the Temple, south of the altar. This water irrigates the banks of the river, bringing life to all creatures and the tree-bearing fruits. The Temple is clearly the symbol of God’s presence. So Ezekiel gave hope to the people in exile. In the gospel, we have the story of a paralyzed man waiting at the pool. He has been waiting for thirty-eight years for an opportunity to enter the pool, for it is believed that whoever enters the pool first when the angel comes to stir the water would be healed. The man, paralyzed by his sins, symbolized the Israelites in the desert for forty years.
It is in this setting that Jesus entered the Temple. In entering the Temple, He is claiming to be the presence of God. He is the new Temple replacing the Old Temple of Jerusalem, which was destroyed during the time of the exile. Jesus came as the Saviour, for there were many people lying there with all kinds of sicknesses. They were people without hope, personified by the paralyzed man. They were all waiting for a saviour to deliver them.
So, Jesus came to the sick man and healed him. However He did not cure him by touching him. Nay, He healed him by a word and a command, “Pick up your mat and walk.” In other words, Jesus showed Himself to be the Word of God. The context of the pool implies that Jesus had come to give us life through the Holy Spirit, since water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, that Jesus worked the miracle on the Sabbath implies that Jesus is identified with the Father. This is because God rested on the seventh day after creation. Although He rested, He continued to sustain creation by His presence and love. So by performing a miracle on the Sabbath, Jesus implicitly is claiming to be God, since like Him, He continues to give life to the people even on the Sabbath. He does not stop giving life since He is God.
When we place all these three elements together, we have actually the work of the Trinity in our salvation, since we have the Spirit symbolized by the Water, Jesus as the Word of the Father and the Father Himself who works through Jesus. This means that Jesus is the One who comes to engulf us in the life and presence of the Trinity by giving us His Spirit and reconciling us with the Father. The Sacrament of Baptism is the way by which we can share in the Trinitarian life of God.
Hence, it is clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Ezekiel. But Jesus has come to deliver us from our misery and sinfulness. Through the Sacrament of Baptism, Jesus gives life and restores us to wholeness. Jesus, as the living water, comes to cleanse us from our sins; and as the Word of life, gives us new life, for in baptism we are incorporated into Him.
However, although Jesus is the living water that comes to give us life, He requires our cooperation. Just as He asked the sick man, “Do you want to be well again?” He is asking us whether we really want to be saved and be restored to wholeness. In other words, for baptism to be effective in our lives, we are urged to reexamine whether we really desire to live the life of Christ.
Thus, baptism presupposes a genuine repentance. We must be sincere that we truly want to get well; that we want to rid ourselves of our sins and all that paralyzes us from living a good and happy life. For unless we are clear that it is our sins that make us unable to walk, to live, to love, then we will not want to change and be transformed. Clearly, then, repentance is the prerequisite for new life. Repentance would mean that we sincerely wish to die to our sins, which in reality is sharing in the passion and death of our Lord.
Secondly, baptism presupposes faith. It is the faith of the man in Jesus that enabled him to walk. By submitting in faith to Jesus who said to him, “Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk”, he was “cured at once, and he picked up his mat and walked away.” So faith is another condition for the new life that Jesus comes to give us. Faith leads to obedience. Unless we have faith in Jesus, we cannot surrender our lives to Him and hence this new life cannot be ours.
Thirdly, Jesus reminds us, “now you are well again, be sure not to sin any more, or something worse may happen to you.” Like the sick man who was healed, we can lose Jesus in the crowd. Because of our preoccupations with so many things in life, we can lose Jesus in the midst of our daily activities. Yes, it is important to realize that we can lose the new life given to us at baptism if we fall into sin. By allowing sin to reign in our lives, something worse might happen to us because we are rejecting something essential.
How then can we recover our faith in Jesus? We are told that like the man who was healed, it is necessary to grow in knowledge of Jesus. The man who was healed “had no idea” who Jesus was. We must therefore take the necessary step to rediscover Jesus in our lives. We need a re-evangelization, to hear the Good News again so that we might have a deep faith in Jesus as the life-giver. If we truly want to find Him again, then Jesus will reappear to us, just as He did when the man who was healed lost Him almost immediately after being given new life by Jesus. Hence, we must pray for the gift of sight so that we can turn to Jesus again.
The worst thing that can happen to us is that we are can fall into the same sin of the Pharisees. Like them, we can be so blind that we do not even see that we are blind. This remains a constant temptation for us, as quite often we forget how sinful we are. Consciously or unconsciously, we explain our sins and weaknesses away and justify what we do and cover up our sins. Instead of being humble like the sick man and admit that we need help to grow in our spiritual life and a personal relationship with Jesus, we try to cover up our lack of personal knowledge of Jesus by relying on doctrines and rituals or engage in debate and discussion on such matters, like the Pharisees who avoided confronting themselves by finding fault with those who break the Sabbath Law.
If we do that, greater is our guilt. As Jesus said in yesterday’s gospel, “But since you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” Yes, the greatest danger is that we might not see the need for a real conversion in our lives. We are so blind that we do not even see our sinfulness and wretchedness. As a result, like the Pharisees, we will not be able to have a share of the New life promised to us at Easter since we have not lived out the paschal mystery, our baptismal calling, by dying to sin and rising with Christ. Let us pray for the gift of openness to conversion so that we can truly embrace the Paschal Mystery in our lives.
Written by The Most Rev Msgr William Goh