I went 1-for-six on the pickle ball court the other day. (Might even have been 1-for-seven. At some point, I found myself averting my gaze from the carnage on the court.)
Didn’t really matter which guy I played with, it seemed: we were going down that day – new paddle and all.
Fortunately, it’s a friendly gang with whom I play … and I think they’ll invite me back next time, even though partnering with me (and my fancy new paddle) in this case proved much less than a triumphant proposition.
“Winning isn’t everything, they say,” I reminded myself as I slinked away from Court 6. But losing, I noticed, can sure feel a little like death. It’s not all that pleasant. It’s a sensation generally to be avoided. And the unassailable logic of this statement (it later occurred to me) makes certain aspects of the spiritual life confounding, to say the least.
Take John the Baptist, for example. I think you could say he was confounded when Jesus presented himself at the Jordan to be baptized. John knew his cousin to be Someone special – one utterly free of the need to repent. And yet, there he was, encouraging John to carry through with the muddy immersion. “Allow it now,” Jesus tells John in the gospel passage we hear today, “for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
Thus we see Jesus, the G.O.A.T., the ultimate winner, acting a bit like a loser in this situation. Freely choosing to go down, as it were. What’s up with that?
Perhaps there’s a clue into Jesus’ intent in the gentle encouragement he extends to the Baptist. “Thus it is fitting for us to fulfill…”, he says. There’s an implied partnership here, right? Jesus lays aside his own glory for a moment … in order to allow John to be caught up in it.
And not just John, I’m thinking, but all of humankind. Jesus accepts baptism as an integral part of his mission to embrace us in our woundedness: “…a bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench…” Jesus’ baptism is a demonstration of his solidarity with us, even when we so often act like losers.
But by joining Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, we gain an entirely new perspective on God’s desire for the human condition. Partnered with Christ, the heavens are opened to us. Behold, we are losers no more.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 