Jan 9: Baptism into New Life

Pietro Perugino: The Baptism of Christ
Cappella Sistina, Vatican, c.1482 (detail)

The Baptism of the Lord

Gospel: Mt 3:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him (NRSV, Mt 3:13).

Father, like all peoples of the Middle East, the Hebrews were almost obsessed by water. It filled their consciousness. In their stories about their origins water abounds. Creation for the Hebrews occurred out of the primeval watery chaos upon which your Spirit descended like a wind or storm in order that the waters might be divided and heaven and earth might be brought forth. When the order and beauty of creation was disrupted by the sinfulness of humanity, creation eventually became undone and dissolved back into the watery abyss. But you, Lord, remained faithful to the one good man, Noah, and his family and brought them through the waters of the deluge to recreate the earth for them.

In the telling of the foundation event which constituted the people, Lord, it began with Moses being saved from the massacre of Hebrew children by being drawn out of the water by Pharaoh’s daughter. The story climaxed with the people being called forth out of slavery into freedom by passing through the sea.

Once in the desert, Lord, the people, now physically free, became victims of their own sinfulness as they murmured and rebelled against you. For forty years they wandered in the desert in purgation of their sins. Then, as the story continued, you led them through the Jordan, dry-shod as they had previously passed through the sea, to live in peace in the land which they understood as your promise to them. Still sin continued to erupt, over and over again, once more to rule their lives.

It was then, Father, that John appeared at the Jordan, calling the people back down to the river that they might pass through it a second time leaving their sinful selves in the desert, this time hopefully for good. John preached a baptism of repentance for sin.

Your son, Jesus, began his public ministry by being baptized in the Jordan by John. But Jesus’ preaching was about more than repentance for sin and it had nothing to do at all with the land. Jesus did preach about a kingdom but it was your kingdom, Lord, a kingdom of the world to come, even if it was actually breaking into this world. It was the kingdom of your absolute rule in which all evil would be overcome.

In the resurrection of Jesus this all became much clearer. For the first time we realized that you, Lord, were offering freely to all of humanity a share in your own divine life, a share that could grow and grow forever if only it were accepted into lives that were then transformed.

John’s baptism was one of repentance for sin. Commissioned by the risen Jesus, the apostles began rather to baptize into the life that you, Lord, offer to all. Down into the water to die to sin and selfishness, up out of the water, not only to forgiveness, but to a new and divine life. In this baptism, Lord, your one, eternal act that is your being, becomes visibly manifest under the saving sign of water.

Lord, may we who have said “yes” to your Word and received your Holy Spirit in the womb, always live out that same act, visibly present under the sign of water in our baptism, at every moment of our lives, growing constantly in your life and power, now and forever.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.