Daily Gospel Reflection
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January 10, 2021
This is what John the Baptist proclaimed:
“One mightier than I is coming after me.
I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.
I have baptized you with water;
he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee
and was baptized in the Jordan by John.
On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open
and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens,
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Not everyone is great at making speeches. We have all heard our fair share of terrible wedding toasts. A bride and groom don’t choose their maid of honor and best man based on their speaking abilities so it’s always a roll of the dice when the wedding reception arrives at this inevitable tradition. The most common and worst mistake one usually hears in these speeches is the speaker trying to make the toast about him or herself rather than about the bride and groom. The jokes fall flat, the stories fail to inspire and the guests cringe. In the end, all is forgiven, or at least forgotten, with a little alcohol and a lot of dancing. Or vice versa.
John the Baptist gives us some profound advice not just on wedding toasts but on the Christian life in this gospel: “the best man, who stands and listens for him,
rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice” The bridegroom, for John, is Jesus, of course. John is the best kind of best man: one who is willing to point to the groom with admiration and love. John knows that his role is to direct us to Christ, to show us the love and mercy that he will bring to all of us. So when Jesus actually arrives and starts drawing bigger crowds than John, all John has left to say is the achingly eloquent line, “So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease.”
We, too, must decrease so that Christ can increase in us. God certainly doesn’t want us to put ourselves down or be filled with negativity directed at ourselves. At the same time, if we are filled with pride and the delusion of self-reliance, we do not allow any room for God to enter our hearts. John shows us the middle way of openness, humility, and excitement at the arrival of the Messiah.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, Jesus humbled himself to be baptized by John in the Jordan. In doing so, he sanctified the waters of baptism so that his people might be reborn, free from original sin. Renew us in spirit so that we may be faithful to our baptismal call to holiness and purity. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Today, the Church celebrates the Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan River, an event that points to the significance of the Sacrament of Baptism for all believers.
In an ancient sermon, St. Maximus of Turin wrote about this feast's connection to the Christmas season:
"Reason demands that this feast of the Lord’s baptism,
which I think could be called the feast of his birthday,
should follow soon after the Lord’s birthday,
during the same season, even though many years intervened between the two events.
At Christmas he was born a man; today he is reborn sacramentally.
Then he was born from the Virgin; today he is born in mystery.
When he was born a man, his mother Mary held him close to her heart;
when he is born in mystery, God the Father embraces him with his voice when he says:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: listen to him.
The mother caresses the tender baby on her lap;
the Father serves his Son by his loving testimony.
The mother holds the child for the Magi to adore;
the Father reveals that his Son is to be worshipped by all the nations."
In this event of Christ's Baptism, as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, God appears in a trinitarian form: Jesus the Son, the Spirit as a dove descending from heaven, and the Father as a voice from the clouds. The Baptism is one of the theophanies described in the Gospels, meaning events where Jesus’ divinity is fully revealed.
As the second person of the Trinity, Jesus did not need Baptism, but he consented to be baptized by John as a sign of the depth to which he joins our humanity. John’s Baptism was intended for sinners as a sign of repentance. Jesus was without sin, of course, but joins us in Baptism, just as he took on the consequences of sin in his death, in order to bring us new life.
The same Maximus writes:
Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water,
but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched.
For the consecration of Christ involves a more significant consecration of the water.
For when the Saviour is washed, all water for our baptism is made clean,
purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages. Christ is the first to be baptized, then, so that Christians will follow after him with confidence.
In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’ Baptism forms a bookend of sorts to his public life—his work begins and ends with Baptism. His Baptism by John marks the beginning of his ministry. After his resurrection, Jesus commissions the apostles to “Go and make disciples of all nations, Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
The scriptural account of Christ's Baptism has beautiful connections to powerful stories of God's action in the Old Testament. In the creation account (Gen 1:2), God’s Spirit is described as a wind hovering over the water; that same Spirit is shown over the waters of the Jordan here to show that in Baptism we are made a new creation in Christ. Christ, as the Second Adam, has opened up a truly new form of life with God, and in Christian Baptism, we die with Christ and rise with him to this new life of Resurrection (2 Tim 2:11, Romans 6:3-5, Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Volume II, p. 274).
The word “baptize” comes from the Greek word that means to “plunge” or “immerse.” In Baptism, the faithful are immersed and plunged into Christ’s death; they emerge from the water with Christ as a new creation through his resurrection. The water becomes a way to new life, much like the Israelites passed through the Red Sea in their liberation from captivity in Egypt. Ancient homilists often compared Christ's Baptism to the column of fire going before the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt. In the same way, the light of the world plunged into the waters of the Jordan to pave the way for all the baptized.
The tapestry pictured here in today's post shows John baptizing Jesus—it hangs in the chapel of the Coleman Morse Building on Notre Dame’s campus, which houses Campus Ministry.
On this feast of the Baptism of the Lord, let us give thanks for our Baptism by which we are made God’s children!