January 11, 2025 ・The Baptism of the Lord (A)

Isaiah 42.1-4, 6-7・Psalm29.1+2, 3+4, 9c+10+11 ・Acts 10.34-38・ Matthew 3.13-17

It is a week long period right after the feast of the Epiphany in our Year A Church Calendar that we commemorate the Baptism of our Lord. Jesus gets baptized by John in the river of Jordan. As Jesus comes out of the water, the Holy Spirit comes down like a dove while God the Father speaks from heaven and calls Jesus His beloved Son (Matthew 3.16).  Our reflection today centers therefore on who Jesus is and on what for He came. We will at the same time understand that in fact the beginning of His public Jesus’s ministry starts with His own baptism. This important event in the river Jordan marks Jesus’ acceptance of the divine mission to proclaim the Kingdom of God well spent on teaching, healing, and miracles.

Today’s feast of Jesus’ baptism and with all memories of things that happened in the river Jordan reminds us of the Father’s love, of the power of the Holy Spirit, and of the hope Jesus brings to all. As to why Jesus needed to be baptized, it is a great expression of Jesus’ solidarity with the human race. Though not as a fellow sinner, His solidarity as a fellow human being had its ultimate expression with and through His passion and death on the cross. May we be able to realize too, as we go through with our reflection, that the commemoration of Jesus’ baptism also points out to our own baptism.

We were taught about the the effects of the Sacrament of Baptism such as “taking away original sin and making us children of God,” and therefore become (becoming) incorporated into the living Christian community. We are continually invited to become truly active members of the Body of Christ, and therefore becoming a more and more living witnesses of the Gospel. It is our greatest hope that as we continue to deeply understand Jesus’ Baptism, may we take courage to dig deeper on the meaning of our own baptism with the declaration of John the Baptist when he baptized people with water. Ours at present is baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire that enable us to live a holy purpose-driven life.