The Baptism of Jesus

The Readings for the feast of The Baptism of Jesus is rich enough for a whole week’s meditation.

• Our baptism makes us free to enjoy the largesse of Our Heavenly Father as described in the first reading from Isaiah. We can taste and see the goodness of God. That reading is used in the Easter Vigil.
• We can contemplate the waters of the River Jordan. Baptismal immersion symbolized a death to sin and emergence to new life.

• The Jordan together with the Tigris, Euphrates and the Nile were the river beds of ancient civilizations. The site of the Garden of Eden. Today 2009 it is the scene of death, destruction and hatred. When will we ever learn!
• Jesus the sinless one, stands in line with sinners, not to make fun of us, but to show solidarity in the struggle against sin. There is a yearning to walk in the path of the Lord. Psalm 1.
• The Baptism is not just a prologue or even chapter one of Jesus’ ministry. This simple act is the whole mystery: sin, cleansing, forgiveness, the price: passion, death and resurrection- “you are my Beloved Son” anticipation of the final victory at the very beginning of the public life.
• Jesus refers to his death as his “baptism”
• The Heavens are torn open like the beginning of creation when the Spirit hovered over the waters, bringing order and balance into the chaos. How badly do we need that Spirit once again to renew the face of the earth!
• Jesus’ solidarity with sinful humanity, walking with our struggles and pain, so that he can lift this humanity to another level, whereby we can become children of God. (John ch. 1).

The Baptism of Jesus

Rambo I, II, III. Home alone I, II, III.. we think this is something invited by movie makers when they have a successful film. Actually God did that two thousand years ago. God’s story was also a huge success, though not by human standards. The most often quoted text from Scripture is John 3:16, God so loved the world, that God sent his only Son. But God was not just satisfied to send the Word incarnate, the Word made flesh in our midst. God wants to announce this historical mystery in three separate events: Epiphany or Manifestation I, II, III.

 The first manifestation or making known of the Advent of Jesus was celebrated on Christmas Day. A whole chorus of heavenly hosts, a whole of angels would sound this message with “Glory to God in the highest and peace to all” The first message was to what the prophets called God’s favoured people: the poor and ordinary people of this world: the shepherd.

The second manifestation was equally spectacular: a Star would rise in the East and this time the message would be to the outsiders, the foreigners, the gentiles, they were not of the chosen race. Salvation was meant to be for all.

The third epiphany, or manifestation we celebrate today according Mark, it is God in the person of the Holy Spirit that will announce Jesus as the one, the Messiah that the people of Israel were expecting.

The Gospel is a simple scene. A sinless Jesus joins the line of sinners to be baptised in the cleansing waters of the Jordan. The cleansing, the forgiveness of sins will be one of the main ministering works of Jesus’ life from that first public appearance to the Crucifixion and Ascension into heaven. It will be one of the main strands which flow through the beautiful tapestry of Jesus’ public life

It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

“The water that cleanses.” It was not real cleansing in the life of Jesus. He was God. Jesus chose to be like us in all things but sin, and so he would stand as a sinner in the cleansing water. We remember another washing – this time at the last supper, when Peter said, “Wash not only my feet, but my head as well.” And Jesus would tell Peter, those who are clean only need external washing. There was another story of water meant for external cleaning. We find it in the Wedding Feast of Cana. This first sign as John the Evangelist calls it.  It is often used for Weddings and the Marriage Encounter group use it as a key Gospel text on the weekends . And yet two small phrases are often over looked:

My hour has not yet come

The water jars for ablutions.

The hour would come beginning with the Last supper and ending with the Crucifixion and Resurrection. But the water jars would also be intimately connected with this “Hour of Jesus”. The water was meant to clean externally because the guest were like Peter clean internally. But Jesus would turn the cleansing water into Wine at Cana and the Wine, that cleans, into his Blood at the Last Supper and Calvary.

The priest says today in the words of consecration “This the cup of my blood, which will be shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins.”  And so from the Baptism in the Jordan through the first sign at Cana and until the foot of the Cross Jesus is constantly forgiving and forgiving and forgiving and so he stands now together with sinners in front of John the Baptist.

The second beautiful gift in this Third Epiphany, third Manifestation are those words:

he saw the heavens being torn open

and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.

And a voice came from the heavens,

He saw and he heard.. and we too are called to see the Face of God and live, and hear the Voice of God and rejoice in that day.

Once again we hear the echoes of Christmas, and The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He was the invisible God born in a way we could see and touch and hear him. The Word had become flesh so that he could one like us in all things – except of course sin. And so he would cry like we do, he would suffer like we do, he would find joy in family and friends, like we do. He would experience rejection.

On coming up out of the water

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

As we end the Christmas season and enter into the Ordinary Time, we are jolted out of being mere spectators, like the Apostles at the Ascension. “Men of Galilee why do you stand here gazing up into the heavens” We enter into our regular lives recognizing that we have the graces of Baptism. We also realise our responsibilities as Priest, Prophet and King (Royal Lineage.) We are called to

 Offer to God ourselves and the whole creation (priest)

 Speak in God’s name thru our lives about the goodness of God (prophet)

 Live up to our dignity as Children of God (king)

We too can hear those words: “You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased”.