Turn. Love. Repeat.
Glory Be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
Christ rose from the dead with an everlasting body, everlasting life and everlasting joy.
Forty days later, he ascended into heaven.
And now we wait for him to come back to give us also bodies, life and joy that will never weaken or die.
Everlasting bodies like his, everlasting life like his, everlasting joy like his!
That promise, its power and the beginning of its fulfillment, though hidden, are already true and present within us because of Baptism.
In today’s Gospel, just as the risen Christ was about to ascend into heaven, he commanded his followers:
All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit….
That old word, baptizing, is Greek and means dipping, sinking, drenching, wetting, soaking.
God in Christ wants us soaked utterly with the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
That soaking gives us bodies, life and joy that will never weaken or die after Christ comes back.
That ever-living joy has God inside it, before it, beneath it, above it and beyond it.
To be baptized, to be soaked utterly, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is to be alive with them, alive because of them, alive in them and alive for them.
But even if they had never created anything, never created us, they have always had each other.
God the Father, giving to the Son the Spirit as life and love!
And God the Son, giving to the Father the Spirit as love and thanksgiving!
Then God the Spirit, being the oneness of love in which the Father and the Son live!
The Three made us in their likeness.
And though human sin wounded our likeness to God, now Baptism washes, heals, and soaks our likeness to God.
Baptism soaks us in the Father who is forever giving to the Son the Spirit as life and love.
Our Baptism soaks us in the Son who is forever giving to the Father the Spirit as love and thanksgiving.
And our Baptism soaks us in the Spirit who is forever the oneness of love in which the Father and the Son live.
So, the word of the Lord in the second reading says:
… you received a Spirit of adoption,
through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!”
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ….
Baptism soaks us body and soul in the life, love and persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Baptism’s power for that comes from the resurrection of Christ body and soul.
In Christ, God let sin spend utterly its last and greatest might in killing even God in flesh and blood.
After that, sin could do nothing more.
Therefore, the death of Christ drained out all of sin’s might against our body and soul.
And the resurrection of Christ was the new creation of humankind in everlasting and almighty oneness with God.
By the will and command of the Creator, Baptism soaks us body and soul in that everlasting and almighty oneness with God.
All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit….
So, we have received Baptism, soaking, in the life, love and persons of the Father, Son and Spirit.
And yet there is more!
As if it were not enough to have God flooding upon us, we— body and soul— now also have God’s Body and Blood to eat and drink.
And so, it is right and just that one of the Eucharistic Prayers (III) at Mass speaks to the Father about the Body and Blood of the Son, about the Holy Spirit and about us.
Father, grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ, through whom and with whom all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever.
Turn. Love. Repeat.
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