Jesus, the Archetypal Life
- davidwperk
- Apr 17, 2024
- 6 min read
Devotional Reflection, Wednesday, April 17, 2024
The week of the Third Sunday of Easter
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s Gospel reading:
16And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’
You will find the full text of today’s Gospel reading at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 961)
AM Psalm 38; PM Psalm 119:25-48
Exod. 19:16-25; Col. 1:15-23; Matt. 3:13-17
Today we celebrate the Feast of Emily Cooper . (See below.)
David’s Reflections
For me, graduate work at times resembled paddling upstream in a canoe. One resource discovered in research took me to another from which the first researcher drew. One of many such moments occurred during postdoctoral studies at Emory University. In a Ph.D. seminar, the professor, the late Robert Detweiler, excerpted a chapter from Richard Hughes’s work The Lively Image, “The Christ Myth,” (Winthrop, 1975). I was prompted to purchase that book. Hughes in turn cited John Dunne, a Roman Catholic theologian, whose work I subsequently bought and read. Paddling upstream as it were, from source to source.
Dunne’s work, A Search for God in Time and Memory (Notre Dame UP edition, 1977), sets forth the intriguing idea that Jesus’ lived the archetypal life, a life that involved a series of conversions, or turning points. Each had to do with John the Baptist. Today’s Gospel provides the first such turning point, Jesus’ baptism, in which his certainty about his identity came to him. “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
The other three turning points also involved movements from uncertainty to certainty or from emptiness to fullness. When John was imprisoned, Jesus became certain that he must express his identity by taking up John’s preaching ministry. John’s martyrdom revealed to Jesus the way in which the kingdom was to come about, through his death. And, the final turning point for Jesus was his facing of death itself, especially in the Garden of Gethsemane and in the cry of desolation from the cross.
Thus, Jesus’ life becomes the archetype for the fully lived life. As Hughes put it, drawing on Dunne: "Jesus thus becomes an exemplar of the multiply converted man (person), every man (person). Mind tenses and flexes, then leaps forward from where it stands to a fuller place; that greater mind gathers itself and leaps again; and again. A lived life is a progress of conversions from emptinesses to fullnesses, from potentialities to realities. This is precisely the pattern of the life of Christ. That pattern we can appropriate (to use Dunne's term) to ourselves.”*
If Dunne is correct, then our lives do not involve moving from uncertainty and emptiness to some sort of final certainty and fullness. Rather, life involves moving from one moment of uncertainty and emptiness to greater certainty and fullness and then facing another uncertainty and another moment of emptiness.
The four major transitions are: [1] our initial experience of the Spirit of God (analogous with Jesus’ baptism); [2] discovering our vocation, or beginning to communicate with others what we have received from God (analogous with Jesus’ beginning his ministry); [3] facing the prospect of death (analogous with Jesus’ awareness of his impending death at the death of the Baptist); and [4] death itself (analogous with Jesus’ experience in Gethsemane and on the cross).+
Our lives do seem to involve major transitions and turning points, times in which certainty dissolves into uncertainty, and fullness gives way to emptiness. Rather than despairing and diagnosing ourselves as somehow deficient, we can find in the life of Jesus the model for just such experiences. We can know that greater certainty and a new fullness does await as we appropriate Christ’s life pattern to ourselves and count on his inner presence. We can trust that Christ will enable and guide us into an ongoing experience not unlike his own. We can understand that we are “crossing over” (to use Dunne’s term) into Jesus’ experience and Jesus into ours.
*The Lively Image: Four Myths in Literature (Cambridge, MA: Winthrop, 1975), p. 180.
+See John Dunne, A Search for God in Time and Memory (Notre Dame UP edition, 1977), esp. chapter 6, pp. 211-224.
Collect of the Day, Third Sunday of Easter
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 224-225)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Emily Cooper, deaconess (died 16 Apr 1909 CE)
Collect of the Feast of Emily Cooper
God of the holy innocents, we thank you for the motherly witness of your deaconess Emily Cooper, who, in naming and baptizing, did not forget the children: Draw our hearts and minds also to the plight of little ones, always remembering your Son's teaching that in receiving a little child in his name, we receive Christ himself, who lives and reigns as one with you and the Spirit, as one, caring forever and ever. Amen.
A Collect for Grace
Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 100)
Disturb Us, Lord
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of the things we possess we have lost our thirst for the water of life.
Stir us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery, where in losing sight of land we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hope, and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope and love. Amen.
(Attributed to Sir Frances Drake upon departing to sail to the New World, 1577. Cited by The Right Rev. Clay Matthews, Clergy Retreat, Diocese of So. Virginia, 2004.)
A Prayer for Light
Almighty God, we give you thanks for surrounding us, as daylight fades, with the brightness of the vesper light; and we implore you of your great mercy that, as you enfold us with the radiance of this light, so you would shine into our hearts the brightness of your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 110)
A Collect for Mission
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. (BCP, 101)
Daily Office Gospel, Matthew 3:13-17
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ 15But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he consented. 16And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’
Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer
Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer
Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer
Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer
Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer
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