The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord today concludes the celebration begun one week ago with the Solemnity of the Epiphany. We use the word “epiphany” to mean a brilliant or sudden insight, but its original meaning is a “manifestation,” a manifestation of God. The Epiphany, then, is all about Christ being manifested to the gentiles, to all the nations.

          The coming of the three wise men is one of three manifestations that the Church celebrates on the Epiphany. On January first, we saw how the Church celebrates Her greatest feasts with an octave or eight days of celebration, and the octave day sums up the feast or presents it in a new light. On the octave of Christmas, we celebrated Mary’s Motherhood, looking at the mystery of Christmas again through Her eyes. Today, on the octave of the Epiphany, we see the second great event of that feast: Christ’s Baptism, through which He is manifested as the divine Son of God. (The third event, His first miracle at the wedding at Cana, was traditionally read on the Sunday after the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and is now read on that Sunday in Year C of the lectionary.)

          St. Matthew draws a clear parallel between the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ at His baptism with the kings of Israel. When David was anointed king, “the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David” (1 Sam 6:13), and Isaiah says of the coming messianic successor of David that, “The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him” (Is 11:2). Thus Peter tells the crowds in the Book of Acts today that, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.”

          This tells us something about our own baptism. After a ochild is baptized, he is anointed on the crown of the head with the Sacred Chrism. He is anointed to become a king, a participant in Christ’s kingship. This symbolism was all the more potent in the centuries in which Catholic countries were ruled by kings anointed on their heads with the same Sacred Chrism used at baptism.

          In what sense, though, is each Christian a king? Christ was anointed with the Holy Spirit, and with power. The kingship that comes to us at baptism is a sacred power not to lord over others, but the ability to rule oneself, to dominate the unruly passions that so often disorder our lives. So often, it seems inevitable that we will give into temptation. But in those difficult moments you can recall: I have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and with power! Christ’s grace within me has the power to defeat these temptations. The Evil One shows us evidence of our weakness, but the Christian can point to his or her baptism and say, I have been anointed a king!

          Baptism thus is a manifestation of God in our lives in that it makes present God’s holiness when we choose to live that authentic kingship, ordering our lives according to His will. But what does Christ mean when He tells John that He – who is God from all eternity – should take part in John’s baptism because “it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”?

          In St. Matthew’s Gospel, “righteousness” can refer not only to upright moral conduct – being obedient to God’s will – but also to God’s saving plan itself. Being baptized by John fulfills an important part of God’s saving plan because it reveals Christ’s kingship, as we just saw. But it also reveals what Christ will do with that kingship:

          We also read today from the prophet Isaiah, who prophecies the coming of a servant of the Lord, upon whom the Lord will pour out His spirit, “my chosen one with whom I am well pleased.” Isaiah’s description of this servant, though, is most famous for the passage we will read on Good Friday: “through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.” The servant upon who the Lord has poured out His Spirit, with whom He is “well pleased,” is the servant who will justify sinners through his suffering.

          Likewise, we see Christ coming forward to be baptized today with a crowd of repentant sinners. Matthew has told us that “Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out” to John (Matt 3:5). This is not a private scene between Jesus, John, and a couple witnesses. Christ has placed himself in line with sinners, He who need repent of nothing taking their sins down with Himself into the waters of the Jordan just as He will take them to the Cross.

          In the leadup to Christmas, we saw the interplay between those two names given to our Lord: “God with us” and “God saves.” We saw that He saves us precisely by being with us, by taking our nature to Himself so that He can redeem us, and by remaining with us in His consoling presence, which continues in His real, substantial presence in the Eucharist. Here we see another way that He has come to be with us, that He draws near to those battling with sin and striving for a new life. He is not far from those who long for a new beginning, but is right there with you!

          When God the Father speaks as the heavens are opened, St. Matthew shows us the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy as Christ is called the one in whom He is “well pleased.” But He does not say that Jesus is His “chosen one in whom I am well pleased,” but like so many other places, he bends the Old Testament citation so we can see its fulfillment in a new light: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

          Up to this point in the Scriptures, there is only one person ever referred to as a “beloved son”: Isaac, the only and beloved son of Abraham, whom God instructed to sacrifice on Mount Moriah. St. Paul will tell us that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his “beloved son” out of implicit faith in the Resurrection, that the God who miraculously gave Isaac to an infertile couple could raise that same child from the dead.

          To offer sacrifice is the core of what it means to be a priest. So, at His baptism, Christ is shown to be a king – a Messianic king with a mission to save His people – and a priest. But He is a very different kind of priest. As the “beloved son,” He is the victim priest, the one who offers Himself. This, then, shows us something essential about what it means for us to be baptized Christians. Not only do you have the power to rule over sin, but you also have the power to offer yourself.

          Many times, we see this reality as “yep, life is going to be tough. Take up your cross. No way around it. But if you persevere through the misery, God will bring some good out of it.” That’s a first step, but the fullness of the Christian life of offering oneself is so much more. St. Paul will tell us that, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life,” and “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”

          To lay down yourself, to make of your life a sacrifice, to say yes every day to God’s plan for your life, is an expression not of weakness, but of immense power. To be a beloved son or daughter of God the Father, participating in Christ’s sonship though Baptism, is to say yes to a loving invitation to pour out your own life in imitation of the Lord whose life is now played out in you.

          “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Through the mystery of Baptism, you have been remade in the image and likeness of God, invited to participate in this great calling. A life of sacrifice that imitates Christ is not easy, but it is a life of immense power, and immense love. This is great and noble calling of the baptized. This is the beautiful life of a beloved son.

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, A.D. MMXXVI