Daily Gospel Reflection
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January 8, 2024
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.”
The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord marks the official end of the liturgical season of Christmas for the Catholic church (even if the radio stations stopped playing festive music on December 26th and many trees have already made their way to the curb). What does today’s gospel say to us as we pack away our Christmas decorations and prepare to return to Ordinary Time?
John the Baptist was calling people to a baptism of repentance. Jesus, of course, had no sins of which to repent, so the fact that he allowed John, who was “not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals,” to baptize him is a gesture of great humility and an example for us to follow. Humbly acknowledging our need for God’s grace opens us up to receive it. And with all of the shopping and wrapping, packing and traveling, and cooking, cleaning, and hosting during the Christmas season, I’m sure we all received plenty of reminders of our need for God’s help!
Immediately after Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit drives him into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Temptation is part of the human experience—and I’m not just talking about after-Christmas sales. Jesus shows us that, strengthened by the grace of baptism and with humble reliance on God’s power rather than our own strength, we, too, will have the means to resist the enemy’s snares.
As we bid farewell to Christmas celebrations and dive into a new year of loving and serving the Lord in our everyday lives, let us be humbly confident that God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—will be with us every step of the way.
Prayer
Spirit of God, we are grateful for the gift of our own baptism. We are grateful to be baptized with your very Spirit, your very self. Lead us, guide us deeper and deeper into awareness of how to live that spirit, especially in areas of forgiveness. We ask that such awareness compels us to forgive and nurture those who have harmed your creatures and creation. Through the Risen Christ, 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!