The Baptism of the Lord
Reflection: The eccentricities of baptism
By SISTER MARY McGLONE
My dad grew up with two relatives who were eccentric, to say the least. One was an uncle who showed up periodically to sleep on the front porch — often deciding that clothing was an unnecessary inconvenience in hot weather.
Another, an aunt who lived outside of the city, would throw stones at Dad and Grandpa when they arrived after making a 10-mile bike ride to bring her food. Dad never talked much about those two. I learned about them from my mom, who knew the stories from her mother-in-law — who was not the blood relative of the folks in question.
I thought about the family response to these characters as I studied the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism. All four make a connection between John and Jesus, but only Mark and Matthew admit that Jesus went to John for baptism (Mark 1:9-11, Matthew 3:13-17).
John avoids any mention of Jesus’ baptism, although in one place (3:22), he says that Jesus baptized others — and shortly thereafter, denied it (4:2). Luke trips over the subject, saying, “After all the people had been baptized and Jesus had also been baptized …” Scripture scholars will tell us that these runarounds assure us that Jesus was baptized by John and that it was an embarrassment to the Gospel writers and their communities. They worried about depicting Jesus as a follower of John.
In contrast to admitting the fact of his baptism, all four Gospels affirm that the Spirit played a part in Jesus’ experience and that after his baptism, he, and sometimes others, heard a heavenly voice proclaim that Jesus was God’s beloved and deeply pleasing Son. As they tell it, the evangelists all agreed that Jesus’ unique relationship with God was the key element of the story.
Why did he ask for baptism?
John’s baptism called people to metanoia, a change of heart and mind that would prepare them to recognize how God was working among them. Baptism expressed a commitment and a desire
to be ready for the one coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Much to the chagrin of many — then and now — Jesus’ baptism reveals that he was an ordinary and deeply religious man who had to grow and pray and seek the movement of the Spirit in his life and in the world around him. Rather than think of him as a divine character pretending to be one of us, we know Jesus as God’s image and the model of what human beings can be. Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:5-11) tells us that the divine Son of God abandoned all privilege in order to share the human experience. Like any pious Jew who sought to please God and be among God’s faithful, Jesus knew Isaiah’s description (42:6) of God’s servant who would gently and quietly embody a new covenant between God and humanity. His decision to accept baptism expressed his commitment to fulfill the role to which God called the chosen people.
While Jesus’ baptism revealed his simple humanity, the heavenly message he heard singled him out. “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” What an announcement! Before Jesus had begun any public ministry, he heard the proclamation that he was God’s own, and that God was pleased with him.
What must it have felt like to hear that? What kind of faith did it take to believe that he was truly of God? What about him was already pleasing God? In order to explore these questions, Jesus spent a symbolic 40 days alone in the desert wrestling with just how he could fulfill the Father’s will in his time and place. Jesus came out of his desert retreat ready to do nothing but incarnate God’s love for the world. Some people experienced him as just that, someone in whom they encountered God. Others saw him as a rule-breaking, oft-blasphemous, eccentric.
Eccentric was right on target — and was the basis of other similar labels. Eccentric means “off center,” unusual, centered in something different. That’s Jesus. Not centered in himself, but on the Father and what the Father loves.
This is where our baptismal commitment comes in. We are baptized into Christ as people pleasing to God, destined to be centered outside ourselves. Baptism aims to free us from what Pope Francis calls “the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures.” Baptism is supposed to make us eccentric like Jesus, people who get noticed because their behavior falls outside the “norm.” This will lead us to be an embarrassment to some and scandalous to others. It will also slowly form us as living members of the body of Christ, human beings becoming all that God hopes we can be.
First Reading
(Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7)
Thus says the LORD:
Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased,
upon whom I have put my spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
not crying out, not shouting,
not making his voice heard in the street.
a bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,
until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.
I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
OR
(Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11)
Comfort, give comfort to my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her service is at an end,
her guilt is expiated;
indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD
double for all her sins.
A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low;
the rugged land shall be made a plain,
the rough country, a broad valley.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Go up on to a high mountain,
Zion, herald of glad tidings;
cry out at the top of your voice,
Jerusalem, herald of good news!
Fear not to cry out
and say to the cities of Judah:
Here is your God!
Here comes with power
the Lord GOD,
who rules by a strong arm;
here is his reward with him,
his recompense before him.
Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;
in his arms he gathers the lambs,
carrying them in his bosom,
and leading the ewes with care.
Responsorial Psalm
(Psalm 29: 1-2, 3-4, 9-10)
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.
Give to the LORD, you sons of God,
give to the LORD glory and praise,
Give to the LORD the glory due his name;
adore the LORD in holy attire.
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.
The voice of the LORD is over the waters,
the LORD, over vast waters.
The voice of the LORD is mighty;
the voice of the LORD is majestic.
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.
The God of glory thunders,
and in his temple all say, “Glory!”
The LORD is enthroned above the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as king forever.
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.
OR
(Psalm 104: 1-4, 24-25, 27-30)
R. O bless the Lord, my soul.
O LORD, my God, you are great indeed!
you are clothed with majesty and glory,
robed in light as with a cloak.
You have spread out the heavens like a tent-cloth;
R. O bless the Lord, my soul.
You have constructed your palace upon the waters.
You make the clouds your chariot;
you travel on the wings of the wind.
You make the winds your messengers,
and flaming fire your ministers.
R. O bless the Lord, my soul.
How manifold are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you have wrought them all
the earth is full of your creatures;
the sea also, great and wide,
in which are schools without number
of living things both small and great.
R. O bless the Lord, my soul.
They look to you to give them food in due time.
When you give it to them, they gather it;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
R. O bless the Lord, my soul.
If you take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust.
When you send forth your spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.
R. O bless the Lord, my soul.
Second Reading
(Acts 10: 34-38)
Peter proceeded to speak to those gathered
in the house of Cornelius, saying:
“In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him.
You know the word that he sent to the Israelites
as he proclaimed peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all,
what has happened all over Judea,
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached,
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power.
He went about doing good
and healing all those oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him.”
OR
(Titus 2: 11-14, 3: 4-7)
Beloved:
The grace of God has appeared, saving all
and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires
and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age,
as we await the blessed hope,
the appearance of the glory of our great God
and savior Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness
and to cleanse for himself a people as his own,
eager to do what is good.
When the kindness and generous love
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds we had done
but because of his mercy,
He saved us through the bath of rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
whom he richly poured out on us
through Jesus Christ our savior,
so that we might be justified by his grace
and become heirs in hope of eternal life.
Gospel
(Luke 3: 15-16, 21-22)
The people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
After all the people had been baptized
and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,
heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
in bodily form like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my beloved Son;
with you I am well pleased.”