Baptized: Being Blessed and Becoming a Blessing

January 12, 2014
The Baptism of the Lord

Is 42, 1-4,5-7 / Acts 10, 34-38 / Mt 3, 13-17

 

With this feast of the Baptism of the Lord we conclude our celebration of the Christmas season.  We say good-bye to the babe in the manger and hello to the young adult Jesus – now baptized and about to begin his ministry among us.  As we return to ordinary life and ordinary things, the Church asks us now to stand with Jesus, to join him in mission, to become his disciple.

It’s a dramatic scene that Matthew describes in today’s gospel.  “The heavens were opened,” he says.  And he explains to us what that means.  God’s Spirit – God’s powerful presence is experienced as descending gently, dove-like.  God’s presence is coming and becoming down to earth.  “The heavens opening” means God is no longer experienced as residing in some faraway heaven.  Rather, Jesus experiences himself as where God really wants to be and dwell.  “You are my beloved child in whom I delight.”  That’s the experience Jesus now has of God.  God is now saying to him: “I will now live and love through you.”

For Jesus his baptism meant being blessed by God.   And it also meant being called to become a blessing for other people.  His mission – his passion – will be to live out of his core experience of God delighting in him.  In the Christian tradition that’s what we call “soul” – our core blessedness – God’s dwelling in us.  As baptized, Jesus lives out of his soul – out of his core loveliness.

Jesus’ mission – his continuing ministry among us even now – is to share with us the blessing of his own baptism.  It is to call us back to our souls – back to our blessedness – back to our core loveliness – and then for us, like Jesus, to live out of our souls, out of our blessedness, out of our loveliness.  We are to share our souls, ourselves, our blessedness with others.  They too are to come to experience God’s delight in them and God’s dwelling with them.  We are called – with Jesus – to give back to people their souls – to give them back their God-given blessedness and beauty.

In telling us the story of Jesus’ mission, the gospels also tell us what our mission in life should look like.  Jesus feels he is sent to others – not to condemn, destroy or curse – but to heal, build up and bless.  The Spirit of God will lead him to enhance and improve life and to rid the world of evil spirits – to put behind us all those ways by which we harm, enslave and dehumanize one another.  The early Christians summarized Jesus’ life and mission by saying: he was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit…, spent his life doing good and healing all those oppressed by evil, because God was with him.  [Acts 10, 38]

Standing with Jesus in our baptism, we too are sent to others to heal, build up and bless.  Anointed like Jesus, we are to spend our lives doing good, healing the oppressed because God is with us.

Let us not dilute our baptism by stepping away from following Jesus as disciples.  We do that when we limit ourselves to being just churchgoers.  The God we see in Jesus is mainly interested in how we relate to people who are suffering.  This God yearns to live in the world and love the world through us.  That’s what our baptism is for.  It sends us into the world to live and love like Jesus.  We are baptized to do mission in the world – not just to come to church – not just to be a dutiful churchgoer.

Let us make our own what Pope Francis said in his World Youth Day homily in Rio.  Lord, where do you send us to bring your love and mercy to others?  There are no borders, no limits: you send us to everyone.  Help us not to be afraid to go and to bring the Gospel into every area of life.  You seek all, and you want everyone to feel the warmth of your mercy and love.

 

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ