INTRODUCTION
Today, with this feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, the Church brings to an end the liturgical season of Christmas. The Christmas decorations, the fancy lights and the cribs must regain their storage places. The focus should move from human “artistic works” to the best of God’s “art work”, our hearts. There we are called to decorate with the crib of Christ’ presence and the light of his birth to keep it on guard against the shadows of darkness. This is important because we humans have the tendency of “seasonal holiness”. Many of us make effort to be at peace with God only during these symbolic moments, and quickly return to our normal ways once they are over. We must understand that Christmas we have just celebrated is the feast of God’s Self-revelation meant to perpetuate his presence in our lives. The Church chose to crown it with the Baptism of the Lord Jesus as a way to remind us that the baby Jesus hidden in that small corner of Bethlehem is now made public to us with the mission to align us to the plan of God through the proclamation of the Good News and the institution of the sacraments of salvation.
Today, for the first time, the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity are revealed to us in an active way.
Today, the Holy Spirit anointed the mission of Christ after His 40-day fast and prayer in the wilderness (a moment of preparation).
Today, the Father made the first historical pronunciation of the divinity of Christ; a pronouncement never heard since the beginning of the world. It is both a confirmation of the divine origin of Christ and an inauguration of his mission as salvific.
Today, Christ accepted the task (a sort of public vow) to redeem the world from sin and corruption symbolized through the water (an element of purification) not for himself but for those to be redeemed.
Today, we are all reminded of our baptism which made us sons and daughters of God through Christ our elder brother. The same Spirit, the same voice of the Father confirmed our sonship the day we were baptized. We are therefore reminded today not only as the elected but also our obligation as co-missionaries with Christ. The kingdom of darkness must be dominated. Let us allow our baptismal anointing to keep us aflame in the holy war and the mission for souls.
FIRST READING: Isaiah 55:1-11
In Isaiah 40-55 (Second Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah), the prophet is preparing the people for the end of their exile and their return to Jerusalem. He begins by saying, “Comfort, O Comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (40:1-2). He relays God’s promise, “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (40:4-5). Chapters 40-55 are full of promises and call for a joyful response by the people.
Written in the heady times of Babylon’s conquest by the Persians, rumors began to circulate that the Jews would be allowed to return home. The author of Second Isaiah picked up on this thought and addressed a skeptical audience. Their liberation was an invitation to celebrate. Their exile was over. Their judgment was past. Even the morally questionable were invited to the feast. The people would be as one again. And they would be with their God again.
The prophet envisions this glorious return as a moment of celebration which reveals the generosity of God; the God who invites His people to feast without paying anything. This is the salvation that Yahweh dishes out to His people. It is a free gift but which requires preparedness in order to embrace it. That is why the prophets enjoined the people who were sceptical as to whether Yahweh could still save them, to forsake their wicked ways, for such is a ticket to the imminent salvation promised by their God whose faithfulness is undoubtedly guaranteed through his word: “For, as the rain and the snow come down from the sky and do not return before having watered the earth, fertilising it and making it germinate to provide seed for the sower and food to eat, so it is with the word that goes from my mouth: it will not return to me unfulfilled or before having carried out my good pleasure and having achieved what it was sent to do.” (Is 55:10-11).
The psalmist intoned this message as a song of salvation to be embraced with a fullness of joy: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” And he anticipated the return of the exiles which will be preceded by the presence of their God in the holy city: “Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitants of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
SECOND READING: 1 John 5:1-9
This is a pastoral letter to churches in conflict––written to address the conflict and to prevent its spread. A number of scholars think of this as a sermon in written form.
The problems in the churches were caused by false teachers who had left the Church (2:19). These false teachers were haughty and unloving. They denied the Incarnation and the divinity of Jesus and claimed not to be sinners. They were precursors of the Gnostic heretics who plagued the early Church.
According to St. Iranaeus (theologian, bishop and martyr c.130-202 AD) the raging wave of heresy at this time might have come from a certain Cerinthus whoflourished aroundAD 100; a Christian heretic whose errors led the apostle John to write his New Testament Gospel. His radical teaching injected alot of confusion in the neophyte Church as he openly taught that the world was created by angels, from one of whom the Jews received their imperfect Law. He taught that Jesus was the offspring of Joseph and Mary, and only received the title Christ at his baptism as a divine power revealing the unknown Father. However, the Christ left Jesus before the Passion and the Resurrection. Cerinthus accepted only the Gospel of Matthew in the whole of the New Testament.
Cerinthus and other false teachers remained influential and persuasive with their thwarted teachings especially about the divinity of Christ. The first letter of John chapter 2:18-19 gives us a hint of how the apostle admonished the Christians to be on guard against the infiltration of false teachings and heretics: “Children, this is the final hour; you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, and now many Antichrists have already come; from this we know that it is the final hour.
They have gone from among us, but they never really belonged to us; if they had belonged to us, they would have stayed with us. But this was to prove that not one of them belonged to us.”
In today’s reading, St. John prolongs his teaching against false witnesses who put disunity between the nature of Jesus Christ. The apostle affirms both the divine and the human natures of Christ; as the Son of God attested by the Spirit and as the One born of water and blood. St. John enjoined the Christians to discard the testimonies of men and to hang up to the authentic faith that is, the belief in the inseparable union of the divine and human natures of the Christ. According to the apostle, this revelation is made by the Father Himself through the Spirit.
This Johannian affirmation prefaced the whole revelation as recorded in the Gospel of today; the Father and the Holy Spirit witnessing to the Christ born in the flesh as the Son of God and Perfect Person of the Blessed Trinity.
GOSPEL: Mark 1:7-11
Baptism as a ritual bath preceeded the birth of John and Jesus. That is to say, neither John nor Jesus invented baptism. It was a common practice among the Jews for centuries as a ritual equivalence and somewhat reference to what we have as Confession. Before the famous historical destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. by the Romans under the army commander and future emperor Titus, it was common for Jewish people to use a special pool called a Mikveh — literally a “collection of water”. The water of the Mikveh is designed to ritually cleanse a person from deeds of the past. The convert is considered by Jewish law to be like a newborn child. By spiritually cleansing the convert, the Mikveh water prepares him or her to confront God, life, and people with a fresh spirit and new eyes–it washes away the past, leaving only the future. Of course, this does not deny that there were good and beautiful aspects of the past. But, in the strictest religious sense, that past was only prologue to a future life as a Jew.
According to the halakhic (Jewish legal) men took this bath weekly on the eve of the Sabbath, and women, on monthly basis. Converts to Judaism were also expected to take this bath before joining the faith community. The Orthodox Jews still retain the tradition. John preached that such a bath was a necessary preparation for the cataclysm that would be wrought by the coming Messiah. Jesus transformed this continuing ritual into the one single, definitive act (receiving Baptism), by which we begin our life of faith. In effect, He fused His Divine Essence with the water and the ceremony.
However, thebaptism of Jesus administered by John was a turning point in the whole notion of the ritual bath. The specificity of the baptism of Jesus was signed by the Trinity. It was a moment of rebirth of creation taking us back to that very first moment when the first act of creation took place over the waters. Above all, it was a revolutionary manifestation of the hidden mystery of the Godhead introduced through the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. It was Jesus’ mystical experience in which He felt deep within his soul the blessedness of the eternal oneness with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The opening of the Heavens with Holy Spirit, descending as a dove upon Jesus, and the Voice of the Father declaring of Him, “This is My beloved Son with Whom I am well pleased,” are God’s revelation to mankind about the Mystery that He is Triune (One God, three Persons).The presence of the Triune God at this baptism, reveals Jesus’ true identity and mission. The Heavens’ opening also indicates that this was a moment of God’s powerful intervention in the whole of human history as never recorded before.
Hence, the ancient ritual bath took a divine dimension which brought about the sanctification of water as a purifying element.
The baptism by John was a very important event in the life of Jesus.
First, it was an event of “Christophany” (the manifestation of the Christ); a moment of decision for his imminent mission. It was a bridge between Jesus’ private life and his public ministry.
Second, it was a moment of identification with his people in their God-ward movement initiated by John the Baptist (quality of a good leader). Though the identification does not signify “a being like them” rather it was a manifestation of the promise “God with us”; a God with us and our Saviour.
Third, it was a moment of approval. Jesus might have been waiting for a signal of approval from his Heavenly Father, and during his baptism Jesus got this approval of Himself as the Father’s “beloved Son.” This unique proclamation of the Father, “My Beloved Son” will become the kerygma of the apostolic faith as well as the “epicenter” that is, the core of all Christological affirmations about the Second Person of the Trinity.
Fourth, it was a moment of conviction. At this baptism, Jesus received certainties (assurances) from heaven about His identity and the nature of His mission:
a) He was the “Chosen One” and the “beloved Son of God”;
b) his mission of saving mankind would be fulfilled, not by conquering the Romans, but by becoming the “suffering servant” of God, i.e., by the cross.
Fifth, it was a moment of equipment. When He descended on Jesus in the form of a dove (symbol of gentleness), the Holy Spirit equipped Jesus with the power of preaching the “Good News” (that God is a loving Father, Who wants to save all human beings from their sins through His Son Jesus), in contrast to the “axe” and “fire” preaching of John the Baptist about an angry God’s judgment on sinners.
LIFE MESSAGES
1) THE BAPTISM OF JESUS REMINDS US OF OUR IDENTITY . First, it reminds us of who we are and Whose we are. By Baptism we become the adoptive sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus, members of his Church, heirs of Heaven, and temples of the Holy Spirit. We become incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ, and made sharers in the priesthood of Christ [CCC 1279]. Hence, “Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other Sacraments” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1213). Most of us dipped the fingers of our right hands into the holy water font and blessed ourselves when we came into Church today. Why? This blessing is supposed to remind us of our Baptism. And so when I bless myself with Holy Water, I should be thinking of the fact that I am a child of God; that I have been redeemed by the Cross of Christ; that I have been made a member of God’s family, and that I have been washed, forgiven, cleansed, and purified by the Blood of the Lamb.
2) JESUS’ BAPTISM REMINDS US OF OUR MISSION:
a) to experience the presence of God within us, to acknowledge our own dignity as God’s children, and to appreciate the Divine Presence in others by honoring them, loving them and serving them in all humility; b) to live as the children of God in thought, word, and action so that our Heavenly Father may say to each one of us what He said to Jesus: “You are My beloved son/daughter with whom I am well pleased.” Being “God’s child” means that we are to let His thoughts direct our thoughts, His mind control our mind, His concerns be our concerns. In the Church, we all share the same intimate connection with Christ; we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and so of each other; c) to lead a holy and transparent Christian life and not to desecrate our bodies (the temples of the Holy Spirit and members of Jesus’ Body) by impurity, injustice, intolerance, jealousy or hatred; d) to accept both the good and the bad experiences of life as the gifts of a loving Heavenly Father for our growth in holiness; e) to grow daily in intimacy with God by personal and family prayers, by reading the Word of God, by participating in the Holy Mass, and by frequenting the Sacrament of Reconciliation; f) to be co-creators with God in building up the “Kingdom of God” on earth, a Kingdom of compassion, justice, and love, and to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. In other words, He has called us to help others to see, through the love that we show and the help that we give, that God loves them, that He invites them, too, to be His sons and daughters, and that He wants to be their Helper and Strengthener through all the troubles that life in this world can bring.
3) THISIS THE DAY FOR US TOREMEMBER THE GRACES WE HAVE RECEIVED IN BAPTISM AND TO RENEW OUR BAPTISMAL PROMISES: On the day of our baptism, as Pope St. John Paul II explains, “We were anointed with the Oil of Catechumens, the sign of Christ’s gentle strength, to fight against evil. Blessed water was poured over us, an effective sign of interior purification through the gift of the Holy Spirit. We were then anointed with Chrism to show that we were thus consecrated in the image of Jesus, the Father’s Anointed One. The candle lighted from the Paschal Candle was a symbol of the light of Faith which our parents and godparents must have continually safeguarded and nourished with the life-giving grace of the Spirit.” This is also a day for us to renew our Baptismal promises, consecrating ourselves to the Holy Trinity and “rejecting Satan and all his empty promises,” which our profane world is constantly offering us through its mass-media of communication. Let us ask Our Lord today to make us faithful to our Baptismal promises. Let us thank Him for the privilege of being joined to His mission of preaching the “Good News” by our transparent Christian lives of love, mercy, service, and forgiveness. (Fr Anthony Kadavil).
4). WE MUST DUFUSE THE CULTURE OF SHARING
Brothers and sisters, we are reminded today of how Christ humbled himself to share in our human condition. In this way, He revealed that sharing is the true way to love. He does not dissociate himself from us, he considers us brothers and sisters and he shares with us. And so he makes us sons and daughters, together with him, of God the Father. This is the revelation and source of true love. And this is the great time of mercy!
Does it not seem to you that in our own time extra fraternal sharing and love is needed? Does it not seem to you that we all need extra charity? Not the sort that is content with extemporaneous help which does not involve or stake anything, but that charity that shares, that takes on the hardship and suffering of a brother. What flavour life acquires when we allow ourselves to be inundated by God’s love! (Pope Francis).
PRAYER
Let us turn our gaze to our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary to support us by her intercession in our commitment to follow Christ on the way of faith and charity, the path traced out by our Baptism.
PAX VOBIS!
