Fr. Fintan Lyons. Among other gifts, some people receive books at Christmas, and if one is fortunate enough, the book will appear interesting, and not one already read and already familiar. So, what happens next is likely to be a quick survey of the beginning of a new book received and then a check on how it ends. I think we are all inclined to do that.
The story from the Gospel of Matthew today, is however already very familiar; the story of Jesus’ baptism is in each of the gospels and has been read many times, so we may find what we have heard today less gripping for being so familiar.
I’m saying that because I want to focus on the person of Jesus at the centre of the story, and stay with him, rather than moving quickly to the implications of our own baptism, as we often do on this Sunday of the Baptism of the Lord.
And, familiar as the story is, we need to be reminded of the lead up to it in the gospel, not included in today’s reading. What precedes it in Matthew’s gospel is an account of John the Baptist’s personality and what he was doing at the Jordan. This fearsome ascetic, clothed only in camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, was calling on the crowds who gathered round, fascinated by him, to repent of their sins by immersing themselves in the Jordan.
Baptism was not part of normal Jewish ritual – Jesus was not baptised as a child – though it was used for converts to Judaism from paganism, but a water immersion could also be part of a person’s expression of a conversion experience when they recognised God’s mercy in forgiving them; that would be the meaning of John’s ritual.
Why then would Jesus, the sinless thirty-year old, leave his carpenter’s workshop and walk the 135 km from Nazareth to Bethany on the other side of the Jordan river, opposite Jerusalem, to go through that ritual himself?
That question invites us to reflect on Jewish religion in the time of Jesus. John the Baptist obviously believed it was in a bad state. But he didn’t think his special cousin, Jesus, deserved to be included with those whom he addressed in harsh terms as a brood of vipers. So why did Jesus insist on being baptised, saying something about fulfilling all righteousness or justice?
What it means, I believe, is that Jesus was identifying himself with the people of Israel, God’s chosen people, good and bad. He made no distinctions as he began the mission he sensed he had, to restore their relation with God – God whom he had called his Father as a teenager in the Temple, according to Luke’s gospel.
It’s something to be marvelled at, this young man finding himself, finding his purpose in life, about to begin a career following on that of John the Baptist. If he needed reassurance that this is what he was called to do, all three accounts of his baptism speak of his hearing a voice from heaven declaring him to be God’s son, and of his sensing the power of the Holy Spirit confirming him in his mission, at whatever cost to himself. Soon, the Spirit led him – drove him, Mark’s gospel says – into the wilderness, where he had a bootcamp kind of encounter with the devil, if that’s not too irreverent a way to speak of the devil’s assault against Jesus.
His endurance, as one whose own relationship with God was unique, would enable him to restore to God’s favour not only his own who would accept his leadership, but all who would look to him as the one enabling them to address God as their father, including ourselves. Our faith is that he embodied within himself a new Exodus, a new journey to freedom, and, most important, he was the paschal lamb of sacrifice marking reconciliation with God for all humankind.
So, what of us, who I said benefit from Jesus’ saving mission? According to St Paul and early church Fathers, Jesus by his baptism in the Jordan was not only finding himself, but emptying himself by descending into the water, not holding on to the dignity of being God’s son but leaving it there as a dignity humanity could acquire. According to Ephrem the Syrian, Jesus went down into the water of the Jordan to deposit there the robe of glory, thus making it possible for humankind to put it on. (Hymns on the Epiphany 12:1). St Paul says in Galatians 3:27: ‘As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ’.
So we do need to reflect today on what our baptism has done for us; it has made us sharers in the life of the risen Christ and the power he won to conquer evil, power we have also. The early Christians suffered from persecution like Christ, but in the strength of their faith in the Risen Christ overcame the power of a hostile Roman empire. Aggressive empires exist today, both seen and unseen; each one of us faces the challenges of evil influences, but with faith in Christ we can overcome.