Summary: We are about to enter into the experience of dying and rising. It is what Jesus has spoken of again and again in his ministry among us. It is what Jesus continues to do in and through us. It is what being “born again” really means. It is what “being lifted up” means. It is what we do in this place around this sacred altar. In his instruction to Nicodemus in the 13th chapter of John’s Gospel he speaks of being “born again:”, and Nicodemus, cannot figure out how that is possible stuck as he is in the material and physical world. As Jesus leads him to understand and desire this re-birth, Jesus suggests that the only way this can happen is by a kind of self-oblation. There can’t be anything left. It’s like the sacrifices in the old Temple, the sacrifice (and that is the key word here) had to be wiped out, obliterated, chopped up, burned up, poured out, broken up, or eaten up. It was “sacrificed”. That is what Jesus puts before us as the method by which a person is born again.Everyone of us who has any hope of eternal life must be born again. The language we have used for centuries to describe this is “die and rise”; and the desire to do that is what brings us to this place around this altar. Our dying and rising, began on the day of our Baptism. That was the beginning. It was far from the end. It was an initiation into a life-style of dying and rising, a life of self-sacrifice, a life that reaches it’s perfection in being “lifted up” in the language of Jesus.The mistake too many make is that Baptism’s dying and rising is a one-time event, thinking that it somehow gives you a ticket or a free-pass into eternal life. Such thinking is shallow, silly, and far from the truth. When asked how many would be saved Jesus responded suggesting that many would be lost and only a “few” would be saved. The lost may well be those who though initiated were never lifted up sharing in the sacrifice of Christ. The truth is, by Baptism we are initiated into a mystery that is alive and on-going. We die and rise, we are lifted up again and again in the sacrifices we make in love for those in need whom we serve. Tomorrow we shall stand and kneel before another body on a cross, used up, broken, and finished; “lifted up” as John puts it. Before that happened in the order of things, another oblation took place in an upper room. In a few moments that oblation will take place on this altar. I want you to hang on to that word “oblation” so often used in the new missal. Think of “obliterate” when you hear it, because that is what is happening here. Before Christ was lifted to that cross, he was lifted at a Table in an oblation like the Lamb sacrificed at the Passover. Here another lamb, the Lamb of God as the Prophet John called him. Here another body is broken up, destroyed, eaten up, obliterated only to rise again in us because of our oneness with the one who calls us to be lifted up through him, with him, and in him.Through us, with us, and in us, Christ rises from the dead again, and his life and his work continues. We enter into the same intimate relationship with the Father he knew and by the their Holy Spirit, we are sealed and gifted with what takes to become children of God. This, my friends is what we do here, and it is what we can become here. Christ is in the place. The risen Christ is in us because of what we consume, eat, and drink at this altar. Because of this oblation, we become an oblation breaking our lives for others, wearing our selves out, offering our gifts, washing the feet of the weary and tired. “Do this in memory of me.” means more than repeat his words and share consecrated bread and wine. It means make yourself an oblation, a sacrifice for others.We do this today keeping the memory of what happened in that upper room leading us to tomorrow and the next day. We do this bearing witness for our children and all who are yet to come with the hope that by the witness of our sacrifices and love they may led deeper into this mystery and find meaning in life oneness with Christ and a share in his eternal divine life.
