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Gospel: Luke 3: 15-16, 22-23
The people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
After all the people had been baptized
and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,
heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
in bodily form like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my beloved Son;
with you I am well pleased.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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“You are dust and unto dust you shall return.”
Those words are spoken to us as a black cross of ash is traced on our foreheads every Ash Wednesday.
There’s nothing miraculous about those ashes. But that black smudge is a simple, yet profound, reminder of our need to amend our lives.
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The same is true of the baptism offered by John in the Jordan River. He was not bestowing the Holy Spirit, but his baptism was an opportunity for people to repent, rededicating their lives to God.
What’s important is the fact that a line is forming in the desert. People are seeking what John is offering. His emergence as a prophet-preacher starts a movement towards God, signaling to Jesus that his time has come.
Jesus needs to publicly identify with this change in religious tide, revealing himself as the long-awaited shepherd, who will seek and save the lost.
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Imagine people braving the desert heat, acknowledging by their mere presence that something has gone awry in their lives.
Jesus stands there in solidarity with them as an anonymous soul shuffling his feet in the sand, waiting his turn.
Far off in the distance, the fiery voice of John the Baptist can be heard, “You brood of vipers! Who told you of the wrath to come?”
The Lord must’ve smiled, admiring John’s zeal.
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According to Luke’s Gospel, John does not realize that he’s baptized Jesus until the Lord comes out of the muddy water and prays. Suddenly, the Spirit descends and remains upon him – a sign of Christ’s divinity. Then the voice of his heavenly Father proclaims:
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
What has Jesus done that was so pleasing? He hasn’t preached a single sermon or performed a single miracle yet. He wasn’t even in need of John’s baptism, as he never sinned! So, again, what was so pleasing?
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In taking that plunge, Jesus inaugurates his public ministry. Here he follows the example of his mother, Mary, who thirty years prior said to the angel Gabriel, “Let it be done unto me according to your word.”
The moment she surrendered to God, Mary let go of everything she called her own – her will, her body, her future, her marriage, her very life – placing it all in the providential hands of God.
Now Jesus does the same. At his baptism, he lets go of everything he’s called his own for the last thirty years – his privacy, his body, his life at home with Mary, his role as a humble carpenter from the small town of Nazareth.
Symbolically, the Jordan River becomes a watery tomb, swallowing the Lord’s private life. Suddenly, he emerges publicly as the Messiah, with whom his heavenly Father is well pleased.
As he turns away from Nazareth and faces Jerusalem, the Lord prepares himself for his destiny: to preach and to heal, to be loved and rejected, nailed to a cross and placed in a tomb.
But there, folded up inside his burial cloth, Jesus will leave one final thing behind: death itself.
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So, what does this mean for us?
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Unlike Jesus, most of us were baptized at thirty days or thirty weeks old, not thirty years old. We had no idea of the gift – or responsibility – we were receiving as holy water came trickling down our heads.
Thus, a crucial step in the Christian life involves rediscovering the meaning of our baptism. What happened to us? How are we to respond? What difference did those stirred waters make?
Our baptism not only calls, but also enables us, to follow the path of surrender, plunging our will, our desires, our future, even our bodies into the watery tomb of the Jordan with Jesus, as we emerge a new creation:
God’s beloved sons and daughters, and thus, his instruments in the world.
As Saint Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ and the life I live is no longer my own. I still live my earthly life, but it is a life of faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself for me.”
Where am I on my Christian journey, which began at baptism? Have I emerged fully out of that font a new creation? Or does part of me still need to be plunged, purified by Christ?
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“You are dust and unto dust you shall return.”
In the end, all that turns to dust is what we leave behind – sin and death.
What remains is what came out of the Jordan:
New life in Christ.
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Image credits: (1) Archdiocese of Regina (2) artmejeur.com (3) Pixels.com