11/1/26
Take the Plunge.
Most of you will be aware that it took centuries, literally, for the Church to decide which books of the Bible make it into the formal Bible we have today and which didn’t.
Our Book of Revelation, right at the end of our bible only just made it. There are books like the Maccabees that appear in some Bibles and not in others, and there are other writings that didn’t make it in at all. For example, there is a fabulous piece of literature called the gospel of Thomas. To read this on the surface with a refreshing beverage and a dish of pistachio nuts, you would probably find yourself asking how come Revelation made it in, and The Gospel of Thomas didn’t?
Another candidate that didn’t make it into our bible was called ‘The gospel to the Hebrews’, and the gospel to the Hebrews gives us one answer to age-old thorny questions that lie in the story of the Baptism of Our Lord.
- Why did Jesus, the sinless Son of God, receive the "baptism of repentance" meant for sinners?
- Why did Jesus wait for thirty years to begin his public ministry?
The strange answer for the first question given by the apocryphal book, The Gospel according to the Hebrews, is that Jesus received the baptism of John just to please his mother and relatives. Anything to stop the whinging… please. And there is an echo of ‘wanting to be obedient to Mum’ in the story of the wedding at Cana.
In John chapter 2, Mother Mary makes it quite clear to her adult son that he should do something about the depletion of wine at the wedding reception. She seems to put her son in an impossible situation, where, in front of the bar tenders, she says, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’
Ultimately, I think (and I am not a great theologian) The Master must always have free choice and to do as He pleases. Think of the story of him absconding in Jerusalem at the passover when he was just a lad. Nothing could be further from the wishes of St. Joseph and Our Lady. Even lying down on a splintery wooden cross and having nails driven through his hands and feet was something he did because he chose to. And I think it is this line of reasoning that is why the Gospel to the Hebrews does not appear in our Bibles today.
A better answer to the question as to why The Perfect Son of God was in the skanky, muddy water of the Jordan was because he wanted to identify with us. Like the manky manger of Bethlehem, God actually wants to be in our sludge with us. God reveals himself as One who is not just pie in the sky when you die, but as one here and now, with the poo of the cow, and in the crud of the mud of the Jordan.
Thankfully, there are people in our lives, though who do give us a bit of a nudge, who shove us towards that course of action, that uncomfortable conversation, that apology that we know we need to offer and will be good for us and even better for the other who we are called to serve. The gnarly crusty twisted feet we know we must wash because they are really His feet after all.
These ‘nudgers’ as I call them, are those who are a little further down the road, people who see us objectively, who can counsel, advise, walk with us and encourage us.
The really good news is that while these are often the clergy, they don’t necessarily have to be.
Often, our first nudgers are our parents and then someone else takes over.
But what happens when the next generation of nudgers go home, too? I can think of a couple of people in my life who I relied heavily upon, who are now in the nearer presence of God, and I miss them terribly.
I can’t just phone them up or go and have a cuppa, a whinge, a wine and a laugh. And so it hurts.
I have to console myself with the sure and certain knowledge that their prayers are more potent and more loving because they are in His nearer presence.
So when I have a difficult choice to make, not only do I consult my modern-day confidants and prophets, but I ask the prayers of those on the other side of the grave who love me still. I ask for the prayers of Mother Mary and her Son, the same folk who once stood on the banks of the grungy Jordan River.
What are they saying to me?
I can either stay standing on the banks, dithering and procrastinating. These are fine skills that I have honed to an art form over the years.
Or…
I can put on my big boy bathers, draw in a deep breath and take the plunge knowing that He is already in there waiting for me. Even in and especially in the unseeable murky waters of death.