Baptism of our Lord January 09, 2022
Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Titus
2:11-14; 3:2-7; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
The son returns a year later and tells his father that he has converted to Christianity. The father is upset and calls his friend who is also Jewish. “You won’t believe this, my son David moved out for a year and came back and told me he converted to Christianity.” His friend says, “you won’t believe this...my son Benjamin moved away for a year and when he came back HE converted to Christianity too”! Both upset, they call their rabbi and explain what happened. The rabbi says, “you won’t believe this, my son Joshua moved away and when HE came back he told me he converted to Christianity too”! The rabbi suggests they call God and tell him. The rabbi tells God that all three men had sons who moved away and converted to Christianity and don’t know what to do. God says to them, “you won’t believe this, my Son too was sent to Israel and he too became Christ there!”
What does baptism mean? The
meaning of baptism can be found in the four letters of the word RICE. “R”
stands for Rebirth. In baptism we are born again by water and the Holy Spirit.
We are cleansed from original sin and become sons and daughters of God in a
special way. “I” stands for Initiation. At baptism we are initiated or admitted
into full membership in the church, the community of the children of God in the
world. “C” is for Consecration. In baptism we consecrate and dedicate ourselves
to seek and to spread the kingdom of God. We commit ourselves to be servants of
God, to do God’s will and serve God with our whole lives. And “E” is for
Empowerment. At baptism the Holy Spirit comes into our lives and empowers us,
equips us, gives us the moral strength to say no to evil and to live as God’s
children that we have become.
These four effects of baptism can
be divided into two categories, the passive effects (what we receive from God
and the people of God), namely, rebirth, initiation, and empowerment; and the
active effect (what we give to God and the people of God), namely, our
commitment and dedication to a cause, to spread the kingdom of God. One problem
people have with today’s gospel is to understand why Jesus needed to be
baptized. An understanding of the “rice” of baptism as we have tried to explain
can help.
In order to understand today’s
feast and what took place at the River Jordan, we have to go far beyond seeing
Jesus' baptism as a matter of dealing with sinfulness. Baptism is not, as is true of all the
sacraments, an isolated ritual. It takes
place in the context of our whole life and the life of the community. Whether we are baptized as children or as
adults, what primarily is happening is that we become incorporated embodied,
into the Christian community. We become
not passively, but actively a member of the Body of Christ. It can never be something imposed on us against
our will. That is why, for adults, there
is now a long process of initiation leading up to Baptism and celebrated in the
presence of the whole parish community and at the Easter Vigil. As today's readings tell us, the Sacrament of
Baptism is insufficient to save us. We must live our faith in Christ by obeying
the commandments of God. This is achieved by shining in our love towards others
as a light in the world.
Happy Sunday
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