January 8^th 2017. The Baptism of Our Lord

GOSPEL: Matthew 3:13-17

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. John tried to dissuade him. ‘It is I who need baptism from you’ he said ‘and yet you come to me!’ But Jesus replied, ‘Leave it like this for the time being; it is fitting that we should, in this way, do all that righteousness demands’. At this, John gave in to him.

As soon as Jesus was baptised he came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice spoke from heaven, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him’.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The first reading is from Isaiah 42, a chapter that speaks of a servant who will achieve marvellous things: he will bring God’s righteousness to humanity and will be a covenant to the peoples and a light to all nations. But how is this servant going to accomplish such wonderful deeds? By his personal attributes or his frenzied actions? No! The servant’s defining characteristic is that he is beloved by the Lord, elected, chosen, selected out personally. But he is not only chosen, he is also favoured, blessed, sustained and held by the hand. We find the same theme when we read Matthew’s account of the baptism of Jesus. Before the event, Jesus tells John the Baptist that he is not interested in following the human pecking order of who is superior to who, or who should baptize who: all Jesus cares about is fulfilling his mission. This involves starting from zero, becoming as lowly as the lowest one of us. But if Jesus starts from zero in human terms, then what is his foundation for the great mission of bringing God’s righteousness to the world? His starting point is manifested at the moment of his baptism. The Spirit descends on him and we hear the voice of the Father, “This is my son, the beloved, on whom my favour rests”. Jesus is the servant spoken of in Isaiah whose entire existence is grounded on the fact that he is loved, chosen and sent by the Father. And there is a fundamental message here regarding our baptism too. Woe to us if we do not see in the baptism of Jesus the meaning of our own baptism! Our life as Christians - our activity in the church - cannot be based upon our attributes, actions, or two-bit strategies! To confront the challenges we face as men, women, ministers of the Gospel, spouses, parents, colleagues, friends, we need to begin from who we are before God. The immensity of who we are for him is what our baptism testifies to. Our baptism cries aloud that our value in the eyes of God is worth infinitely more than our talents and attributes, our actions and what we possess. In baptism, God has gratuitously elected us, called us, chosen us, favoured us, blessed us, and loved us. He has taken us out from the old man and brought us into a new life that is based entirely on his love.  

The Gospel account of the baptism of Jesus makes reference to passages from Genesis and the prophet Isaiah. The text in Genesis speaks of a “beloved son” whilst the piece from Isaiah describes a servant on whom the favour of the Lord rests. The fact that Jesus is a beloved Son of the Father doesn’t stop him from being a dedicated servant.

The account of Jesus’ baptism that we read on Sunday comes from Matthew 3. Every passage from the Bible is a mine from which many treasures can be unearthed. Each story can be looked at from many different points of view, but we will follow the interpretation suggested to us in Sunday’s liturgy by reading the Gospel passage in the light of the first reading. The first reading that is chosen for the Sunday Eucharist always contains a key for interpreting the Gospel. On Sunday the first reading is the Canticle of the Servant of God from Chapter 42 of the prophet Isaiah. The Gospel reading from Matthew actually cites this passage from Isaiah, but it mixes it with a citation from Genesis 22, where Abraham is called to sacrifice Isaac. At the beginning of Isaiah 42 we read:

Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom my soul delights.
I have endowed him with my spirit
that he may bring true justice to the nations.

He does not cry out or shout aloud,
or make his voice heard in the streets.
He does not break the crushed reed,
nor quench the wavering flame.

Faithfully he brings true justice;  
he will neither waver, nor be crushed
until true justice is established on earth,

This marvellous passage continues and we will hear all of it at Mass on Sunday. Our Gospel reading then cites the first words of this canticle. When Jesus goes to be baptized, John tries to stop him saying, “I need to be baptized by you, but you come to me for baptism?” Jesus replies, “Let it be so for now so that all righteousness will be fulfilled”. After the baptism, Jesus emerges from the water and we are treated to a complete manifestation of the Trinity. The Spirit of God descends like a dove and the voice of the Father is heard, “This is my Son, the beloved on whom my favour rests”. Here we have a mixed reference to Genesis 22 (where Isaac – the only son of Abraham - is described as the “beloved”) and Isaiah 42 (“Here is my chosen one in whom my soul delights”). As in Genesis 22, Jesus is referred to as the “Son”, but Isaiah 42 reminds us that he is also a servant.

John is told that Jesus must undergo baptism in order to fulfil “all righteousness.” Jesus is the servant mentioned in Isaiah who will bring God’s righteousness to the world. How will he achieve this great goal? By respecting the human pecking order of honour that John wishes to respect by insisting that Jesus baptize him? NO! Jesus’ starting point is somewhere else!

Why does the Gospel take such pains to recount this rather futile-sounding exchange between John the Baptist and Jesus? Isaiah 42 helps us to understand the significance of this exchange for each one of us. What is the “righteousness” that Jesus must accomplish? It is not a forensic righteousness in the sense of a rule or a ritual that must be respected. We are talking here about the righteousness that is at the very heart of God’s plan for humanity. The state of unrighteousness is when we find ourselves separated from God’s plan. Some passages in the Old Testament speak of the “retribution of God”. God’s “retribution” is the misery and unhappiness that awaits us when we follow a course that does not lead where the Lord wants. Sin and deceit entail that we are living in a manner different to the one that God has planned for us. Jesus’s mission is to establish this righteousness. He is about to embark on his mission and encounters John, his precursor, who follows a line of reasoning that is perfectly understandable to each one of us. Why should Jesus come to John for baptism? There is an issue here regarding the relative significance of these two characters. John wants to give honour to the Lord Jesus and it seems logical that Jesus should accept this proper ordering of things. But this sort of logic is nothing more than the way we continue on in our existence from day to day.  We base ourselves on these human building blocks of the honour that we derive from certain attributes that we possess, on the attention that we can garner from certain goals that we achieve. Jesus comes and rejects this pedestal, this notion that he is more than others, the whole mentality in which one person is compared to another. His mission is to bring about the righteousness of God for the salvation of the world and he must make something else his starting point.  

The incredible achievements of this servant will be based entirely on the fact that he is beloved, chosen, elected, sustained, favoured, blessed, held by the Father

The Holy Spirit descends and a voice comes from heaven, “This is my Son the beloved. On him my favour rests”. In the text from Isaiah we are presented with a servant who will achieve extraordinary things: he will bring justice to the nations and will not waver until he has fulfilled his mission. This is what Jesus is referring to when he speaks to John the Baptist: the fact that he will make the world righteous. The “islands” referred to in Isaiah were considered of unimaginable distance away. Thus the mission of the servant extended to the whole world. He was to be appointed as covenant to the peoples and light to the nations. How will the servant accomplish such incredible deeds? The foundation of what he will achieve is his relationship with God, not the honour given to him by men! The Lord Jesus begins from zero in earthly terms. He openly says that his prestige among men doesn’t interest him and is of no use to him. All that matters to him is who is he is in the eyes of the Father, the beloved Son on whom his favour rests. The passage from Isaiah makes reference to “my” servant. In Hebrew, the possessive pronoun is put at the end of the sentence, so it reads as “servant of mine”, emphasizing the intimate relationship between them. And we are told that the Lord defends and sustains this servant, maintains him and holds his hand. The servant is the “elected one”, the one who has been chosen, picked out from the crowd. The word in Hebrew for “elected” means to be selected out in order to become extraordinary. Furthermore, the servant is the one “in whom my soul delights”. All of these attributes are actions of God on behalf of the servant. Similarly, in the Gospel, we have, “This is my Son, the beloved”. “Beloved” is a passive term and indicates the joyful state of this Son who is sustained by the strength of the love of a tender Father.

As for Jesus, so also for each one of us. Woe to us if we do not see in the baptism of Jesus the meaning of our own baptism! The baptism of Jesus tells us that it is the fact of being beloved and elected by the Father that is the foundation of the mission of Christ. And so too for us. We will not construct the Church upon our two-bit strategies and frenzied activities. Our sole starting point must the fact that we are beloved and chosen by God. Only then can the life of the Spirit be manifested in us.

This is the foundation of Christian action! Woe to us if we do not learn from this Feast of the Baptism of Jesus the meaning of our own baptism! In the first place, baptism concerns the power of God, not human considerations or honour or pecking order. We shouldn’t think that the church can be constructed upon ineffectual strategies where we focus on a myriad of things that are best left to the Lord. To confront the challenges we face as men, women, ministers of the Gospel, servants of the Lord, spouses, parents, colleagues, friends, siblings, constructors of society and the church, we need to begin from who we are before God. Who we are for him is what our baptism testifies to. Our baptism cries aloud that our value in the eyes of God is worth infinitely more than our talents and attributes, our actions and what we possess. God has gratuitously elected us, called us, taken us out from the old man and brought us into a new life that is based entirely on his love.