Isaiah 55:1–11
1 John 5:1–9
Mark 1:7-11
Perhaps you do not remember. Six weeks ago, we began the Advent-Christmas cycle with a reading from Isaiah. His lament became our longing, “Oh, that today you would rend the heavens and come down” (Is 64:19). Here we are at the end of the Christmas season. We are at the end of a season of epiphanies. Today, Mark tells us God is doing just that, answering our cry and coming to our aid: the heavens are being torn open. And from that torn opening comes down the Spirit. The same Spirit that was present at the creation of the world has once again come down upon someone dripping with the water, the same water that was there at the beginning. It is the same Spirit that came down on the prophet and anointed him to be a bearer of Good News, to bring release to those in bondage, to comfort those in mourning and bring gladness and a time of grace and favor. That tear in the heavens was not silent, for from that opening a voice was heard. It is a voice that affirms identity and at the same time gives a mission. “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
What Mary and Joseph and even the shepherds at Bethlehem heard about Mary’s child before Christmas and on Christmas, Jesus now hears for himself. He is Son of the Father, he is Messiah, he is a chosen servant, and he is David’s heir. All the words that the voice from the heavens speak have accumulated meaning over Israel’s history. Now all that meaning and purpose are laid on Jesus. The Spirit enters him who was conceived by the same Spirit. In Mark’s gospel, this scene is presented as a very personal one. Only Jesus sees and hears all this about himself. Mark does this because he does not have his story begin earlier on like Matthew, Luke or John where all this is revealed to the characters and us the listener.
I dare say that none of us heard any voices at our baptism, probably because most of us were infants. But I heard no stories about it from my parents or godparents. Even adults do not hear the voice of the Father at their baptism. And yet, hidden in that baptism with its water, its anointing, its clothing and its passing on of the Paschal light something profound does happen to us also. For baptism expands our human genealogy and literally plunges us into the genealogy of God as it were. When, like Jesus, we come up out of the water we come up with our full identity. Be have been born anew by the Spirit of God. We have been adopted by the Father and are now his children. Our primary relationship is not limited to the fleshly but also to the Spirit and the Father.
We heard John say I baptize with water; but the coming one, Jesus, will baptize with the Holy Spirit. His baptism will restore your true identity. You will find yourself in a relationship with Father, Son and Spirit, a Trinity.
Today’s feast is in reality the climax of the Advent-Christmas season. This season is about the appearance of God. It is about God entering into our human history; it is a response to our longing for nearness to God and our need to be shown how to live humanly. So in the Christmas season we have been celebrating appearances. Not just of a baby or a star, but of God in our flesh. Today when Jesus does that humble act of letting John baptize him in water, all heaven literally breaks loose. In a simple washing, heaven and earth come together and earth sees and hears Father, Son and Spirit. Christmastide does not go out in a whimper with tossed tinsel, not with us who belong to Christ. It goes out with the full manifestation of the God we dare to call a Trinity. Today is really Trinity Sunday. This is heart of our feast.
But the feast does not leave us out. That humble act of going into the water places us in the family of the Trinity as it were. In our baptism, we are adopted by God, not as second class citizens, but as truly “begotten” as St. John puts it in his letter today. Entering into the life of Jesus Christ is to be begotten by God he says. As we hear of Jesus being named the Father’s Son, so each of us who experienced the water, is affirmed again as belonging to God in a most intimate and even inexpressible way. John makes it clear: we are not bystanders to Jesus baptism; we are sharers in his begetting. God continues the process of begetting in the human family. Our begetting, like that of Jesus, is one born out of love: my beloved, the one in whom I am well pleased.
This is a cosmic feast. Cosmic in the sense that the heavens are affected and the waters are affected. God touches them both and they become revealers of relationships. The waters of our baptism carry the power of bringing to birth ourselves. It is the place of begetting. We open this Christmas season with the birth of God’s child; we close it with the revelation that we too can be begotten as children of God. God sent his Son out of love; now the Father shares that love with us and calls us to step forward to walk with his Son on the journey of new life.
Our Triune God is not an abstract statement of belief. No, you and I can see it and be in it each time we are nurturing a relationship to one another, to a brother or sister who like ourselves is a child of God, precious enough to die for (this is what John means when he says Jesus came in blood). Our Triune God has a face and flesh in each one of us. Let us walk gently and peacefully with one another—let us walk in the Spirit who today filled Jesus and, on our baptismal day, filled us too.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul