“Who do people say that I am? ... But who do you say that I am? ... Peter said to him in reply, You are the Christ."

After my ordination, my bride and I were blessed to be on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  The day we traveled to the Dead Sea was yet another remarkable encounter. While walking along the shore, before taking a dip and float in the dead water, I reflected from my Bible, and this week’s Gospel came up, well, randomly. 

I thought about the juxtaposition of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River where we had previously been.  That we are meant to be like it (living water), not like the Dead Sea. This same water, the Jordan River, flows into the Sea of Galilee and into the Dead Sea. But the Sea of Galilee is still alive with fish and fishermen today, while the Dead Sea is well, it’s truly dead, no life lives in it.

Like us and others at times, if we don’t truly know Christ, if we “are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do," we won’t be the Sea of Galilee, which not only receives the fresh water of the Jordan River at its inlet, but it also gives it away at its outlet, where it flows to the south into the Dead Sea.

If we don’t fully surrender to Christ, have relational love with and for Him, we will be like the Dead Sea with no fresh inlet of grace and no outlet of sharing its charity, its love. We all know this is true of souls and rivers like the Jordan. "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it."

Isn’t that the difference between spiritual life and spiritual death? To give yourself away is the only way to live.  Our brothers who have died physically to this world this past year, our brothers who live with serious disease, conditions, and aliments, physically, some emotionally and spiritually; are examples of surrender.  We can embrace our crosses, no matter how difficult, for we have our good Lord to follow, He truly is the Christ, the holy one of God! See you in the Eucharist - Receive, Believe, Teach, Practice

The Dead Sea also has the lowest Bar on Earth!

Deacon Ernie