Saints of God, the Lord be with you!
Scripture scholars use the criterion of embarrassment as one of their tools to help them uncover the historicity of a particular scripture passage. Many scripture scholars also advocate that the Gospel according to Mark is the earliest gospel text written. In today’s Gospel (Mark 10:35-45), Jesus, for the third time, has told the disciples that He is soon to be handed over, mocked, scourged, and condemned to death. Rather than offer Him support, the brothers James and John basically ignore all that Jesus has just said, and, to put it bluntly, ask, “What does that have to do with us? Give us what we want.” Talk about throwing a bad light on the disciples! But don’t worry, Matthew (20:20-28) cleans this up and has their mother do the demanding. Jesus asks them, “Can you drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” To which they respond (probably without any reflection), “We can!”
Whenever we go to communion, we should remember that our reception of the Body and Blood of Christ (even if it is only the Eucharistic Bread) is a “re-dipping” into the waters of baptism. The baptism of Jesus of Nazareth was no washing away of sin, since Jesus was and is sinless. Rather, Christ’s baptism was a baptism of solidarity with sinners: the poor and hungry, the religiously disposed, and the politically powerless. This is the cup that Jesus asks James and John if they can drink from. And this is a question we must ask ourselves as we enter the communion line: Am I willing to live my baptism of solidarity with those who are different from me? Baptism is communion…and communion is a living out of our baptism.
Of course we all want to know, “what’s in it for me?’ I suppose the answer is, in the end, eternal life. But there’s more…to paraphrase Psalm 29:13, “we shall see the Lord in the land of the living.”
Our heaven will begin for us now, in this life, on this earth. Christ as Servant becomes for us the Way, the Truth, and the Life of us who have faith. Heaven is the result of how we live our life of faith, and it begins now…or it doesn’t begin at all.
– Fr. Steve
