Mortality being what it is, we are limited by definition. Most of the time we forget this as we bluster off into the thick of our lives, managing Herculean feats like raising children, committing our fidelity for life, accepting the suffering and death of those we love, and living with the ongoing surrender of youthful strength and beauty in exchange for the encroaching pain and disability of old age. These are huge undertakings, impossible to reconcile in abstraction but endured on a daily basis without fanfare by the folks sitting around us in the pews.
At the same time, all of these undertakings teach us challenging lessons about how truly fragile and ephemeral we are. Flesh is grass, scripture says; it rises up in a season, common and cheap, and then fades and dies without much notice. In another passage, it is noted that a human life is “70 years, or 80 for those who are strong.” That may seem like a lot of time in the beginning, but after three decades or so we start to appreciate how short the normal life span is. Not to mention the fact that our birth comes with no warranty, and we don’t get our money back if our particular life span is considerably shorter.
Acceptance of our finite condition allows us at least one precious gift: the absolute significance of the present moment.
The power of this hour
Those in 12-step recovery programs know well the fatal hubris involved in swearing off liquor, drugs, overeating, compulsive sex, gambling, or any other substance or behavior “forever.” Forever is a long time, and it’s not given to us mortals to dicker over. What we’ve got in our hands is the present hour, and therein lies all the authority over our lives that we will ever need. All we have to do, really, is commit to a certain responsibility or course of action today, right now, in this hour. Let tomorrow take care of itself—if we should have a tomorrow. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.
If we try to do otherwise—and we often do—then we find ourselves in the unlikely task of biting off eternity and trying to swallow it. We choke on the attempt. Instances of paralysis and indecision in our lives might be accounted for by the knowledge that we are seeking to do too much: making “forever” choices with finite hearts. If we are overwhelmed by life at times, we might step back from trying to live “our lives” and live only the next hour. Or the next five minutes. Or take the next breath. Those are significantly more manageable tasks, not to mention more sensible ones.
John the Baptist betrays that he is caught up in the Big Picture at the expense of the moment when Jesus comes to him for Baptism. John has been proclaiming a mighty, controversial, and dangerous message in a high profile sort of way and gathering gale force for a coming storm. To prepare the way of the Lord, John has also been performing Baptisms all day, all week, perhaps for a season or more. It should be second nature to him to perform one more. It should be his finest hour to receive the Lord for whom he has been preparing the nation. Instead John freezes, objects, finds himself at a loss to do the first thing his Lord asks him to do. Being wrapped up in the Big Picture, John cannot find himself in the simple and singular demand of this hour.
John’s problem and ours
It’s not that John doesn’t know how to do what Jesus asks. It’s that he’s confounded by the why of the request, not to mention the who and the what of it. John wants to understand it before he does it, and according to every path of reasoning, the thing doesn’t make sense. Baptism is for repentance—does Jesus need to repent? Baptism absolves us of past sin—does Jesus have any? Baptism prepares the way of the Lord—does Jesus mean to prepare the way for himself?
John has believed all the while that he is cooperating with the great divine plan, and has styled himself a mere voice in the wilderness who has abandoned ego and will in order to give God room to act. But in this hour, he is forced to recognize that his ego and will are quick to reassert themselves when the logic of the thing confounds him, as it does here. He will submit to God’s plan entirely so long as he gets it. But if God introduces some inexplicable variables, John is fully prepared to balk.
I don’t think this reaction is rare—it is among the most common spiritual obstacles we face. Being finite folk, we have a very limited perspective on what’s going on, cosmically speaking. Logic is one of the big guns we pull out to blast away at life’s dilemmas. Who hasn’t drawn columns of pro and con on a piece of paper in an attempt to reason through a discernment? How many would-be saints have abandoned the path of faith altogether because they couldn’t get their minds around some practical, factual concern?
It doesn’t take a biggie like “virgin birth” to get our minds spinning in stunning denial. For John, the sinless one shouldn’t be baptized; he should be baptizing! It was as simple as that.
Applying the word
Then he gave in
What it took John to breech the impasse was an act of surrender. He gave in “for now,” or as the advertising wizards might say, he just did it. If John had foreseen where this whole divine pageant was going—Baptism, conflict, rejection, arrest, trial, condemnation, crucifixion—no doubt he would have really balked and been unable to continue in his share of the task. What would finite human reason make of the road Jesus was on? What good was knowing the Big Picture if it took away our ability to function in the present hour? “Give in for now” is a great motto for discipleship. Inch by inch, we make our way toward paradise.
Related scripture links
Flesh is grass: Isa. 40:6-8
Seventy years or eighty: Ps. 90:10
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof: Matt. 6:34 (KJV)
