Daily Gospel Reflection
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January 9, 2023
Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan
to be baptized by him.
John tried to prevent him, saying,
“I need to be baptized by you,
and yet you are coming to me?”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us
to fulfill all righteousness.”
Then he allowed him.
After Jesus was baptized,
he came up from the water and behold,
the heavens were opened for him,
and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove
and coming upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens, saying,
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Reflection
As joyous Christmas hymns settle softly into echoes, my mind still hums along: “O come, divine Messiah. O come, Emmanuel… come adore Christ the Lord, the newborn king.”
This rhythm of worship reflects the early pattern of Matthew’s Gospel with its forthright presentation of Jesus’ identities: a genealogy of the Messiah, a dream with the herald of a “God with us,” and magi seeking a king born in Bethlehem.
In today’s Gospel, Matthew portrays Jesus emerging from the waters of the Jordan, the heavens opening, a dove descending, and a voice announcing another identity: “This is my beloved Son.”
My imagination has often elaborated upon the starkness of this account. In a time when I was captivated by creatures like those of A.A.Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood, I imagined the comforter, with whistling wings, descending to be with us.
Later, there was a time in my adolescence when I naturally grew in self-awareness of my sonship—what I should do to become the man my parents wished for me. In the baptism of Jesus, I saw my own call through baptism to be such a child of God, to act justly and walk humbly with God.
As I read this passage today with my infant son in my arms, I imagine it all anew. I imagine my son giggling with the whole of his body when his Mom and I tickle him, mouth fully agape, holding his breath, squiggling and squirming. I imagine the creeping smile that spreads like the dawn across his face when he first sees us in the morning.
And so I imagine God’s inner life anew: the boundless love of the Father for the Son and the Spirit descending.
Prayer
Spirit of God, give us grace to recognize the ways you live in our midst. Trusting that we are your beloved, may we have the courage to work for righteousness and truth. 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!