THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

Isaiah 55:1-11

1 John 5:1-9

Mark 1:7-11

 

 

It is all grace.  We ought never forget that.  Perhaps it is easier to remember if we can recall a time before we believed, a time of emptiness and longing.  Think of days in midwinter when darkness seems to reign.  If the season is harsh you can begin to wonder if spring and warmth and light will ever return.  Oh, the longing!

That seems to be what is assumed in the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah.  Notice how generous and all encompassing God is setting the standards that ought to be the hallmarks of the Church’s welcoming attitude and spirit of Table Fellowship.  The only prerequisites for those called are hunger and thirst.  Poverty, too.  All who are thirsty, come to the water!  You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!  The difference for those who heed will be the difference between death and life.

We celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  It is one thing to consider that epiphanic moment, that manifestation of Jesus as Lord.  But we also ought to remember our own Baptism and how different our lives would be had that moment never happened.  Imagine the emptiness.  Imagine the longing.  And the Lord says: Come!  The temptation that will get in the way of our response is the temptation to focus on our selves.  If we are aware of sin in our lives, we can be tempted to think that the Lord could not possibly love us, sinners as we are.  We’ve been baptized, after all, but sin attests to the fact that we have wandered.  The Lord couldn’t possibly still be saying: Come!  Not to me.  Not to us.  Well, yes, maybe God is doing just that.  Seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while he is near.  Let the scoundrels forsake their ways, and the wicked their thoughts.  The particular sins are not important.  All sin can be forgiven.  That is God’s will and desire.  The sinner just needs to accept that and repent, turn away from sin and act like one who believes.  The word has gone out from God.  Every heart that is open to that word and changes accordingly helps assure that my word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.  And since we believe that that Word sent forth from God is Jesus, just imagine the possibilities.  Imagine grace’s bounty.

That is what John tells us in the second reading when he calls us Beloved.  God begets everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ.  Everyone.  You.  Me.  Each and all of us.  How is that evident?  Keep the Commandments.  You know what they are.  Jesus made them clear and concise.  Love God with your entire being.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  A new commandment I give you.  Love one another as I have loved you.  The standard, the norm is Jesus’ response, the response that compelled him to pour himself out for us to the shedding of the last drop of his blood.  What Jesus did so must those do who believe in him.  That is what being Church is all about.

Jesus came through water and blood, John tells us.  The Spirit descending on Jesus at the moment of his Baptism tells us that Jesus is Lord.  Jesus comes to us through Baptism.  Jesus comes to us through Eucharist, too, that is, through blood.  Living our Baptism and celebrating Eucharist attest to our faith in Jesus as Lord.  And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.  In other words, the attitudes and values of those who have Jesus as Lord must be different from those of the world.  Love is evident in the assembly of believers. 

It is sad that the Church, reflecting on her history, can recall those eras when that love was not evident to those who suffered at the Church’s hands – those burned at the stake, those rejected and condemned as infidels, those who died in the Crusades.  The atonements of John Paul II and continued with Benedict XVI acknowledge the sins of our past against our Jewish brothers and sisters and proclaim that the Church in these time must be different.  Practically that must mean that the first impression others get of the Church is not a caste system of some lording over others, but a fraternity of equals, brothers and sisters gathering in, with, and through Jesus, our brother, Jesus who manifests a vulnerable God.

In these difficult times, the message of the Church expressed in the Social Justice encyclicals needs to be proclaimed and lived.  We do have a responsibility for each other.  The wealthy do have a responsibility to share with the poor.  The powerful do have the responsibility to lift up the weak and support the infirm.  Believers bring peace and work for justice.  What compels us?  We look in each other’s eyes and recognize Jesus.  What attests to a parish’s validity?  One thing.  Two for sure.  That the message proclaimed is one of forgiveness and hope for the sinner.  That the dominant experience of those who come into the assembly for the first time is that these people really do love each other.  There are no hungry among them.  The disabled minister among the able.  All are welcome here.  The diversity avows that.

It is one thing to contemplate the Baptism of the Lord, that moment of the Spirit’s descending, the heaven’s being rent and God’s voice heard saying: You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.  But don’t stop there.  Think of your own.  Know that when you were baptized, the waters poured over you inviting you to die and to begin to live a new life.  The Spirit descended upon you and took up residence in your heart.  In Baptism you received a new identity – called by name, you were identified with Christ.  And in that moment the heavens were torn open over you and God spoke: You are my beloved son or daughter and I am delighted with you.  That, too, is what we celebrate on this feast.  Now all we need to do is find the courage to believe it and the grace to live it.  The grace to live it.  It is all grace.

Sincerely,

Didymus