Zech 9:9-10
Romans 8:9, 11-13 
Matthew 11:25-30

Bishop Untener's Homily

Sometimes the simplest truths are the deepest truths. The trouble is, because they're so simple, basic, we don't spend much time thinking about them. They're just there.

We have one of those truths in today's passage from Matthew's Gospel. Jesus says: "No one knows the Father except the Son... and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him." Then, the very next thing Jesus says is: "Come to me all you who are weary and are burdened."

Let's step back and look at that.

We know that we are to call ourselves daughters and sons of God. But in a way we can think of this as sort of a metaphor. There's no way we human beings can really be God's daughter or son. How can we be "God"? But God is good, and God is going to treat us as though we were God's own children. 

That's where this simple but profound truth comes in. Jesus came down from heaven so that we could join ourselves to him. Jesus became one of us so that he could bring us into the same relationship he has with his Father. There's an old saying in tradition: "The divine became human, so that humans could become divine." 

This is real, not "let's pretend." Jesus says, "I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. I have come to share with you the same Spirit that is in me. You will have God's own life within you, and you will come with me to God, and you will share in my own relationship with the Father. We will stand before God and I will say, `This is my brother, my sister. These are your sons and daughters.'"

This is God's pure gift. But it is real. We are joined to Jesus Christ. We're not half-brothers, half-sisters. We receive the gift of his own Spirit. We have God's life within us. And Jesus takes us where we thought only he could go - to the heart of the Trinity. Jesus says to us, "You are what I am."

All this becomes clearer when we think about Baptism. The traditional form of baptism - a tradition to which we are returning - is to be totally immersed in the water. The water represents Jesus Christ, and by entering the water we are joined with Jesus, "grafted into" him.

Then there is Confirmation. We are anointed with the Chrism (the same word from which we get the word "Christ), and the Spirit comes upon us, and stays with us. We receive the same Spirit that came upon Mary when she conceived Jesus, the same Spirit that descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan River. We have new life within us, God's life, and we become sons and daughters of God.

Then there is the Eucharist. When the bread and wine are brought forward and placed on the altar, they represent us. We then join with Jesus as, in his dying, he gives himself entirely into the hands of the Father. We join with him in doing that. And when we come forward to receive the bread and the cup, it isn't simply a private audience with Jesus. The body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus become part of our own body and soul. We become what we eat.

Oh, this is a simple truth. Jesus came so that we could become one with him and so that he could bring us into his own relationship with God. It's not complicated. But it's profound. And it's the key to everything else we believe. If we let ourselves think about this truth, let ourselves truly believe it, then every day looks different. Death looks different too. 

And if we let ourselves think about that, and believe it, then we begin to act more like who we are. We begin to act like God's daughter, God's son.

Originally given on July 7, 2002