Homily for 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 2, 2023
Rom 6: 3-4, 8-11
St. Edmund, Edmonton, Alberta

“All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Rom 6: 3).

Fresco of an early Christian Baptism

(Catacombs of St. Callistus, Rome)

Our 2d reading today, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Christians of Rome, is heavy on death and dying.  Christ died on the cross—but “was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father” (6:4).  I take “glory” here to mean God the Father’s divine power.

St. Paul teaches that our Baptism associates us with Christ’s dying and rising:  “we have been buried with him by Baptism into death, so that … we too might walk in newness of life” (6:4).  The early Christians were baptized by immersion, by being completely plunged into water.  The sacraments are sacred symbols, and that plunge symbolizes dying and being buried.  The baptized were immersed 3 times, as Christ lay in the tomb 3 days.  And they rose from the water 3 times, symbolizing Christ’s rising and his promise that we who follow him also will rise.

The 3 immersions and 3 risings also represent the Holy Trinity:  with each plunge, the priest pronounces a name of the 3 Persons of God:  “I baptize you in the name of the Father … and of the Son … and of the Holy Spirit.”

So Baptism is a promise from Christ that the power of the 3-Personed God will raise us from death on the Last Day.  “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (6:8).

Paul continues:  “raised from the dead, Christ will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (6:9).  Death is the penalty for sin.  A little later in this chapter of Romans, Paul comments explicitly, “The wages of sin is death” (6:23); and then in ch. 7:  “Our sinful passions … bear fruit for death” (7:5).  In his earthly life, Jesus underwent temptation, which we recall every year on the 1st Sunday of Lent with a gospel reading about the Devil tempting him in the desert.  He could’ve sinned but didn’t.  After his resurrection, sin and death have no more power over him.  “The death he died, he died to sin, once for all” (6:10).  That is, he died once, and he died for all human beings, to offer us the gift of forgiveness and life.

When we commit ourselves to putting sin out of our lives—which we do when we’re baptized—our sins are forgiven and the path to life opens up for us.  Jesus says, “I am the way” (John 14:6).  Being joined to Jesus by Baptism allows him to lead us on the way to eternal life.

Now, your experience and mine, brothers and sisters, isn’t that we’ve completely done away with sin, is it?  Our rebirth in Christ, our conversion to Christ, is never done—once and done.  Every day we have to recommit ourselves to put sin to death in our hearts and to walk with Christ.  Every day we have to continue the struggle to rise from our deadly passions, from our words and actions of selfishness and pride, from unkindness, from gossip, from lust, from greed, from laziness, from the idolatries of wealth, pleasure, and power, from excessive screen time, from lack of trust in God, from thinking we can write our own moral code.

Despite our failures, Paul urges us to “consider yourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11).  Jesus doesn’t give up on us.  So we mustn’t ever quit the fight.  Whatever our sins may be, we must pledge not to lose courage, not to lose our confidence in Jesus.  I think of one of Winston Churchill’s famous WWII speeches.  With the Germans poised on the French coast to invade England, he promised:  “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Never surrender to the Devil.  Hang onto Jesus, “so we too might walk in newness of life” (6: 4).  Every day take up your cross and follow him.  Resist temptation, strive to die to sin, surrender only to Christ.