Daily Gospel Reflection

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January 12, 2025

The Baptism of the Lord
Lk 3:15-16&21-22
Listen to the Audio Version

The people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

After all the people had been baptized
and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,
heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
in bodily form like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my beloved Son;
with you I am well pleased.”

Reflection

Margaret Schlueter ’26 M.Div.
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We recently celebrated the baptism of our first child, and the day was lovely. It was a golden autumn afternoon. We were surrounded by friends and family as our rosy-cheeked little girl was welcomed into the church and received the grace of baptism. Afterward, everyone enjoyed a home-cooked meal together.

And yet, I found myself overwhelmed and distracted.

I wanted to be fully present, but the fluctuating postpartum hormones, the sleep deprivation of caring for a one-month-old, and all the accompanying stress of organizing a large event while learning to be parents had taken a toll. I was, well, tired.

I wonder if that’s how “the people” in this gospel passage felt. We’re told they were looking for Christ. With eyes set on the forerunner figure of John the Baptist, they were “filled with expectation.” Their eager expectation for a Savior indicates their faithfulness and hope in God’s promises.

And yet, despite their best efforts to set their gaze “in the right direction,” they were a bit off the mark. John the Baptist was not Christ. The day of my daughter’s baptism, I knew I should look with eager expectation at Christ working in the sacrament, but I was off the mark a little bit. I looked with tired eyes at all the details of the day when, really, the details were merely forerunners.

There’s good news, though, for anyone who finds themselves looking with faithfulness and longing and yet misses the mark. God still comes to us, even when we get distracted and cast our expectant gaze at the wrong people and things. The people in this story were distracted, in a sense, by John the Baptist, but Christ came into their lives anyway.

Even in my distracted state, Jesus still called my daughter to a life with him, and so my gaze, tired and distracted though it was, was set in the right direction too—that is, on him.

Prayer

Rev. Eric J. Schimmel, C.S.C.

Most loving God, help us today to remember that the same Spirit who descended upon Jesus came upon us when we were baptized. Enkindle our hearts with the fire of your love so that we can hear you speak to our souls, “you are my beloved with whom I am pleased.” Guide our words and actions to speak your belovedness to the people we meet today. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Saint of the Day

Baptism of the Lord

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!