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The Baptism of the Lord
There are few things I enjoy more as a priest than celebrating the sacrament of baptism. It’s hard to describe the joy I feel in holding those beautiful babies – little miracles each one of them – holding them and immersing them in the blessed and saving waters, knowing all the while that, viewed with the eyes of faith, this is the most important day of their lives! Jesus’ baptism was an important day in his life as the readings for this wonderful feast attest. For Jesus, baptism was the beginning of his ministry – the formal and public start of his life’s mission. It was accompanied by signs and wonders at the Jordan: the heavens opened up and God’s voice was heard. After his baptism he was a man on a mission: he began his public ministry of preaching and healing, began to carry out the liberating ministry of the Suffering Servant that Isaiah spoke about in today’s first reading. But wasn’t Jesus’ baptism something entirely different from ours? Jesus needed no baptism, after all. John the Baptist made that clear when he acknowledged that he was the one who ought to be baptized by Jesus. For what could baptism add to the One who was already in every sense of the word God’s beloved son? And the answer is: nothing. But I’d rather put it another way: Jesus’ baptism added nothing to him but it adds everything to us: it says everything about us and about our baptism. Jesus got baptized in order to teach us the meaning of our baptism. Do you know the meaning of your baptism? If you were baptized as an adult, you probably have a head start because you remember it and may have a clearer sense of its meaning than those of us who were baptized as infants. But remembered or not, three things happened at your baptism: you were adopted, you were initiated, and you were called. Let me say a word about each of those three: adoption, initiation, vocation. When Jesus was baptized, a voice came from heaven declaring him God’s beloved son. When you and I were baptized, no voice from heaven was heard, but God did declare us beloved sons or daughters. God did! It was our moment of adoption: we took our place alongside Jesus in the family of God, God’s Spirit was breathed into us, giving us our divine birthright. Jesus by nature is the Father’s beloved son; we, by our baptism, are the Father’s adopted sons and daughters. That means that God loves us with a love like the love he has for Jesus! Think of that! So, baptism was our adoption. Baptism was also our initiation. At baptism, we were initiated into a community of believers, a family, the Church, the Body of Christ. That means that our walk in faith, while certainly a personal thing, is never a solitary thing. We are, by baptism, part of a family: related to each and every member of God’s family whether we know them or not. And it is as members of that family, the Church, that we live our life of faith. God’s grace – God’s very life – flows to us in and through that family, and never more so than when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist. It is here at Mass more than anywhere else that being part of God’s family moves from theory into practice; it is here that we actually experience what it means to be part of the Church, the Body of Christ. So, I ask you, what greater motivation could we possibly find for being here week after week? Not to be here is not only to deprive ourselves of something we dearly need, it is also to make the Church less than it could be, and it is to weaken the Body itself. The Church needs each of us in order to rise to its full stature. Baptism is initiation, then, as well as adoption. And baptism is also vocation. The gospels make it clear that it was immediately following his baptism that Jesus began his ministry of preaching and healing and announcing God’s kingdom. His baptism was his defining vocational moment. In a manner of speaking, it was his priestly ‘ordination:’ his public embracing of his ministry to preach the Good News and to reach out to the poor, the needy, the suffering. And I think this is where our baptism comes the closest to the baptism of Jesus, for our baptism was and is our defining vocational moment, too: our ‘ordination,’ if you will, into the priestly People of God. On the day of our baptism, after the cleansing waters flowed over us, we were clothed in a white priestly garment and anointed with the sacred oil of Chrism -- the Christ oil (the same oil with which priests are anointed at their ordination) -- and we were told that just as Jesus Christ was anointed prophet, priest, and servant king, so were we. My friends, I know all this can sound theoretical, but I assure you it’s very, very real. And we need to awaken to it! And what better time to do so than on this feast of the baptism of Christ? What better time to claim our baptism, our sacred birthright as Christians. We are not – you are not -- second-class citizens in a hierarchical Church. We are, to quote Ephesians, “fellow citizens of the saints, members of the household of God…a building which rises on the foundation of the apostles and prophets…a holy temple in the Lord.” Does that make you feel important? It should! So should the words that are carved into the floor around our baptistery: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people that you may declare the wonderful deeds of God who called you out of darkness into marvelous light.” And now, united with Jesus Christ -- prophet, priest, and servant king -- Jesus whose calling became our calling on the day of our baptism, we are going to profess our faith. Following that, we will be sprinkled with blessed water from our baptistery as we proudly reclaim our baptism and re-commit ourselves to all that that baptism means, all that it demands. Please stand. Father Michael G. Ryan |
