THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD C

[cappie]

The Liturgy last week revealed the mystery of God’s plan—that in Jesus all peoples, symbolized by the Magi, have been made “coheirs” to the blessings promised to Israel. Today we witness the Baptism of Jesus, and what it means for Jesus and us. And the place to start, of course, is with today’s Gospel reading. We heard the first part of this story just a few weeks ago at the end of Advent. Remember how John was at the Jordan River, the place where the people of Israel crossed over into the Promised Land, and how he preached repentance and judgment and remember how John told people what to do if they wanted to live out their repentance?

It was to this place, and into this context, that Jesus came to be baptised. We need to remember that our basic understanding of baptism, and of our own baptism, comes from Jesus, and from what happened at his baptism, and from what happened after and because of his baptism—and not from anyone else John baptized, and not from anywhere else.

The first thing I want to point out is that, when Jesus was baptized, no one told him what to do. John the Baptist didn’t tell him what to do. And God the Father didn’t tell Jesus what to do, either.  The Father told Jesus who Jesus was; the Father announced his identity: “You are my son, the Beloved…” But there is nothing in there about what Jesus was supposed to do; nothing about what it looked like for him to be the beloved, the uniquely named Son of the Father.

 Jesus did go to the Bible for his understanding of what it meant, of what it would look like, for him to be the Beloved of the Father. He went to a generally ignored and fairly overlooked part of the Bible. He went to a part that wasn’t even about the Messiah.

He went to the servant songs of the prophet Isaiah—four powerful and perplexing poems.   In these passages, God’s chosen one is portrayed as a servant—weak, gentle, patient, and burdened with pain. He is a servant who somehow, mysteriously and through his obedient suffering, redeems not only Israel but all of humanity. In these passages, the servant of God, the Beloved, fulfills none of the popular expectations of a Messiah. (And Jesus was generally rejected as Messiah by his own people because of this). Jesus is the chosen servant Isaiah prophesies in today’s First Reading, anointed with the Spirit to make things right and just on earth. God puts His Spirit upon Jesus to make Him “a covenant of the people,” the liberator of the captives, the light to the nations.

Jesus, today’s Second Reading tells us, is the One long expected in Israel, "anointed... with the Holy Spirit and power.”  Jesus embraced a faithful obedience that leads only through great affliction to his justification, and to the victory of God. It was these poems of Isaiah, and the vision behind them, and none of the others, that Jesus chose as his own. This, he decided, is what it would look like for him to live out his ministry and his mission. And the Father was well pleased.

When Jesus came out of the waters of baptism, he was given his identity—he was named beloved of God. He had to decide where to look to discover how he was to live out that identity. There were lots of options; there still are.

Today is one of the four Sundays each year when the Church calls us to pay special attention to our own baptism. We are called to remember that we, too, have been named the beloved of God and that we, too, must live this out, day to day, in our own place and in our own time. Jesus chose the image of the suffering servant, the one who gives up everything for the sake of faithful obedience to God’s word. We choose Jesus. That is our glory – and our challenge.