The opening verse for today’s Solemnity of the Baptism of our Lord Jesus, which marks the beginning of his public ministry and brings our Christmas season to a close, draws us back to the mystery of the Epiphany or Theophany. At Epiphany, Christ is revealed to the nations as the light of the world, while in his Baptism he is revealed by the Father as the beloved Son, upon whom the Holy Spirit descends. Isaiah’s opening words, “Here is my servant with whom I am pleased” (Is. 42:1), and Matthew’s Gospel, in which the Lord proclaims, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17), invite us to reflect on this unfolding revelation of Christ and on our own human condition, as well as God’s sacrament and sign of Baptism within the saving plan of salvation history.
For Jesus, this symbolic washing was the moment in which God revealed his human Son. Though he came into the world without sin, he took upon himself the weight of our sin and our fallen condition (2 Cor. 5:21). This grace filled sign, revealed to us in the second Person of the Trinity, helps us understand why Jesus the Christ was baptized. All who become Christian and are baptized for the removal of original sin become adopted sons and daughters of God through that same Holy Spirit, by whom the Father’s agape love is made known in the public ministry of Christ (Eph. 1:5).
The reading from the Acts of the Apostles, in Peter’s account, reminds us that this same Holy Spirit anointed our Lord Jesus with “Spirit and power, enabling him to heal all those oppressed by the devil, because God was with him” (Acts 10:36 to 38). Therefore, the sacred gift of the Baptism of Jesus calls us to reflect on our own baptism. As a family, we recall the day we were anointed and made adopted sons and daughters of our Lord. For myself, I was baptized one month after I was born. When was the date of your baptism? When were you made into a new creation, an adopted son or daughter of God our Father?
For further exegesis, visit what the early church has to say about the Baptism of our Lord: https://www.churchfathers.org/necessity-of-baptism
Pax
StreetEvangelist 