This Sunday, Your Baptism Is for Others, Not Just You

Last Sunday Jesus told his disciples on the night before he died that they will do “greater works” than his. This Sunday he spells out just how that is possible.

Here are five takeaways for the Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A, drawn from Sunday Readings columns at this site and the Extraordinary Story podcast.

First: the Church makes it clear that God wants more from our baptism than just our salvation.

Just before this Sunday’s passage from the Gospel of John, Jesus says that he is “The way, the truth and the life.” That means a lot as regards our afterlife — but it also means a lot with regard to how we live our life on earth, right now. In the opening prayer of Mass this Sunday, the Collect, we pray “that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism may, under your protective care, bear much fruit.”

He does want us to be saved — but he also wants us to “bear much fruit.” We do that by living in Christ the way, truth and life.

• Jesus Christ is the way, so we join him by deeds, not just words. “If you love me you will keep my commandments,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel.
• Jesus Christ is the truth who says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth.”
• And Jesus Christ is the life, and he says in the Gospel, “I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live you will live.”

What he says here is important — but when he said it reveals its meaning.

Second: Jesus says these words as he inaugurates his kingdom.

His words in this Sunday’s Gospel come after Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem as a king (in John Chapter 12) and before his death at the hands of Pilate as a king (in John Chapter 18). What he spells out on the eve of his passion is nothing less than our marching orders for the establishment of his kingdom on earth, the New Eden.

It is a Kingdom where Christ is the way, so he taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and demonstrated what he meant in the Garden, praying “not my will but yours be done.”

It is a Kingdom where Christ is the truth, who taught us that “The truth will set you free” and told Pilate, “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.”

And it is a Kingdom where Christ is the life, who said “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly,” and offers the Eucharist explaining “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

The way, the truth and the life are the three ways we enter the kingdom of God: By loving God through his commandments, participating in his truth through the Scripture, and by receiving Divine Life through the sacraments.

If that sounds abstract, Sunday’s readings offer concrete examples to spell it out.

Third: The readings set up a contrast between the apostles before the kingdom, and in it.

In the First Reading, St. Philip goes to Samaria and proclaims Christ to the notorious opponents of the Jewish people, the Samaritans. St. Luke, the author of the Book of Acts, tells us:

“Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Christ to them. With one accord the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip when they heard the signs he was doing.”

This is the precise opposite of what St. Luke’s Gospel describes about Jesus and the apostles in Samaria:

“On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destiny of his journey was Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?’ Jesus turned and rebuked them.”

Before the crucifixion, resurrection and Pentecost, the Samaritans rejected Jesus, and the apostles rejected the Samaritans. After the kingdom is inaugurated, not only do the people receive Philip, but he transforms them:

“For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice, came out of many possessed people, and many paralyzed or crippled people were cured. There was great joy in that city.”

The difference is clear: Where James and John wanted to purge their lives from the face of the earth because they were a problem. Philip wanted to help them purge their problems from their lives because they are children of God. James and John looked at the Samaritans and saw enemies of the chosen people; Philip looked at them and saw future Christians.

Fourth: But John did, finally, get to “call down fire” on the Samaritans after all.

The disciples of Christ knew just how to incorporate these people into the kingdom: Call down the fire of the Holy Spirit on them. The Catechism uses the passage we hear at Mass this Sunday to describe the scriptural basis for the sacrament of confirmation:

“Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.”

What did Peter tell them when he performed this Sacrament? We can imagine he told them what he tells us in the Second Reading for this Sunday’s Mass:

• Follow Christ the Way, by living “with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear” with “good conduct.”
• Speak Christ the Truth and “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.”
• Unite with Christ the Life who was “put to death in the flesh” and “brought to life in the Spirit.”

St. Peter is giving us the same advice.

Fifth: But we need to take it one step further.

The sacraments that transformed the Samaritans transform us, also. They are channels of grace — love, truth and life with God — that are guaranteed, on one condition. We have to cooperate with them.

You don’t get the full grace of the sacraments in church. They start there, but for lay people, they come alive in our efforts to spread his kingdom of Christ by raising the eyes of the temporal realm to God in our workplaces, homes and communities.

After receiving the Eucharist, you have to get up and step out in love, speak the truth and live in communion with Christ.

• Take love first. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” says Jesus. He defines real love as love that does what the Beloved wishes. If you want comfort amid the world’s darkness, the first thing to start doing is God’s will.
• Second, truth. To prophesy is to speak according to “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept.” Insisting on your truth or capitulating to the world’s truth won’t help you: Only real truth comforts, the challenging truth of God found in Scripture and the Church’s teachings.
• Third, communion. “I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you,” Jesus says. That only happens the hard way, by a real unity of heart, mind and will with divine life. First, communion means accepting Jesus Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity into yours in church, but then it means offering your body, blood, soul and humanity to him out in the world.

In other words, the Holy Spirit doesn’t come to you as you shelter in place. The Spirit who is always on the move comes when you are on the move too — he marches with you when you follow his way; he fills your heart and mind when you speak his truth; and he unites you with his life when you leave comfort behind to build the kingdom of Christ on earth.

By Tom Hoopes