Not Kidding

Today's Scripture

God knows us so well. I mean He did create us, so it should not be surprising, but still - he knows us so well. He knows that we have a hard time with abstract things. It is hard for us to imagine things that we cannot see, feel, hear or taste. So He accommodates our need for physical things that accompany the spiritual things that He has promised. Most commonly, we call these things the sacraments and the birthplace of all sacraments is baptism.

When it comes to Baptism, and perhaps other sacraments, it is easy for us to say that the physical things, and the words - what the Church calls matter and form are really only symbolic.

But these words and physical things are exactly where God comes to meet our needs. He gives us the words and physical things so that we can know that the spiritual things He promises are actually occurring.

Like the buds tell us that spring is here, the matter and form tell us that a new birth is here. Like the buds are linked to the warmer temperatures in spring, the words: I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit are linked to the forgiveness that Jesus promises. Not because the words coming from the priest or deacon do that, but because the words came from Christ, who is the author of baptism. When we desire to share the words, we also desire for the 'new birth' to occur.

Jesus affirms this for us in His conversation with Nicodemus: "Amen, amen, I say to you,

unless one is born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God." This 'amen, amen' means that what follows is God's truth - Jesus, who is the truth, revealing something about himself. It is not a metaphor, or a symbol or a saying. Born of water and the spirit. The water means something. We use the form and the matter and Jesus brings the Spirit and new birth - as promised.

EASTER CHALLENGE: Many of us may have been baptized as babies. This doesn't mean that somehow the form and matter didn't matter. Think about the day of your baptism, look up the record, ask your parents if you have to. Reaffirm your baptismal promises today and reclaim all that was made true by Him that day and live a life of rebirth.