Last night a bunch of us were studying the Bible together, which is fun. We were looking at a section of Paul's letter to the Roman Christians in which Paul starts to talk about faith in relation to our Baptism. He writes, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we have been buried with Him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." (Rom. 6:3-4)
As we enter into the month of April on this Holy Thursday, I am reminded that I was baptized on this day: April 1, 1962 -- almost 6 months after I was born. Yes, the day I officially became a Christian was...April Fool's Day!
Some might consider that "a bad break," but I do not. You see, one of my favorite verses in all of Holy Scripture is found in another of Paul's letters, 1st Corinthians, where he says to his Christian brothers and sisters
"Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings,
so that we might be kings with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as least of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have
become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are
strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute." [1 Cor. 4:8-10)
So I, the April fool kid, have been a "fool for Christ" from the beginning! Many times I have heard people use that phrase, "I am a fool for Christ," as a kind of badge of honor, and I agree with them! Pastor Paul, in writing up our Holy Thursday worship service for today, has used quotes from the noted Christian author Frederick Buechner in the liturgy. Since we're talking about foolishness, here's one of those quotes:
"'We're fools for Christ's sake,' Paul says. Faith says that ultimately the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, the lunacy of Jesus
saner than the grim sanity of the world. Through the eyes of faith, too, the Last Supper, though on one level a tragic farewell and failure...is also, at its
deeper level, the foreshadowing of a great hope and the bodying forth of deep mystery. Frail, fallible, foolish as He knows His disciples to be, Jesus
feeds them with Himself. The bread is His flesh, the wine is His blood, adn they are all of them, including Judas, to drink Him down. They are to take
His life into themselves and come alive with it, to be His hands and feet in a world where He no longer has hands and feet to feed His lambs."
Love always seems foolish at first. It requires a step forward in faith to love someone -- a leap of faith to go ahead and tell someone "I love you," because they may not say, "I love you" back, and they may take advantage of your love and care and they reject you. We've done that to Jesus. But Jesus is a fool, a divine fool. He loves us anyway.
David Hewitt
