Drenched in Baptism

We are in awe of magnificent sunrises. We cherish crisp spring mornings, fragrant purple jonquils swaying in breezes, effervescent dew trickling, tickling velvet-like petals. We sense vibrance in buzzing bees and fluttering humming birds – indescribably magnificent things. But equally glorious are sunsets that are looked upon with a certain hope of a coming tomorrow.

However, sunsets, though beautiful, remind us of the “end of things.”

Dusk reminds us of the inevitability of our lives’ own sunsets. Our repetitive circular-like existence finally ends. No more sunrises. We live “from the rising of the sun to its setting” (Psalm 113:3) in a solar system of predictability, of rotations and revolutions, of the law of entropy. The death of things is a calculation of the second law of thermodynamics. Civilizations have called this wheel of time the circle of life.

But, what if life is not really a closed circle, but rather more like an open spiral? What if life is really a dynamic upward movement, more akin to that of a spiral or a double helix? What if this Jacob’s ladder (Gen 28:10-17) is meant to take us into an existence with eternal sunrises, but, as beautiful as they are, no sunsets?

Before Jesus’ incarnation, human life could be compared to a bird-of-paradise within the yolk of an egg. Wet and dripping, it breaks out of the yolk. Like so, Jesus cracks the rock-shell tomb of time and space. He bursts forth in “resurrection wetness,” to allow upward passage to a dwelling place (John 14:2) of non-time. Eternity! Jesus keeps His human form, and yet, while transfigured and translucent, He is not a wispy airy ghost. He retains all of his broad muscularity, even bearing the now-eternal wounds on His glorified body. His sunset on Calvary is the last sunset. His rising is the eternal freedom-sunrise for those who believe and hope in Him. (John 8:32) Follow His life. Jesus is baptized in the Jordan; He changes water into wine. His cup of wine turns bitter. Before He drinks the bitter wine of death, Jesus gives us Himself in the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass like ancient Melchizedek. (Heb 7:1) Jesus transforms bread into His flesh, and wine to His blood. The lentils of our Passover souls are sprinkled with it, saving us from the false power of death, and for eternal life. St. Paul boldly writes, “Death, where is your victory? Where is your sting?” (1 Cor.

15:15) From this, we spiral upwards — ultimately, to our own bodily resurrection.

Eternal morning began when Jesus defied Roman strength, pharisaic jealousy and fear of pain and death. He rose. There begins our pilgrimage to a land of eternal sunrises; a land where God “will wipe every tear,” where the “old order of things will have passed away.” (Rev 21:4) For those drenched in Baptism, Easter is not a season; it is truth — eternal moment. We, dripping with “resurrection wetness,” look upwards — and break for freedom. (Mark 1:8) (John 3:5)