Baptism of the Lord 2020
Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts 10:34-38; Matt 3:13-17
So we come to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, originally the central and most important part of the Epiphany, when Jesus was revealed—shown forth—as the Beloved Son of the Father. The three synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—all describe the event, whilst John reports John the Baptist’s account of it. In other words, all four evangelists considered Jesus’ Baptism important enough to be included in some way in their Gospels.
It is worth comparing the accounts given by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. All of them describe the Baptist’s declaration of his own unworthiness in comparison with Jesus: only Matthew describes him as trying to dissuade Jesus from being baptised, saying “It is I who need Baptism from you, and yet you come to me.”
Scripture scholars suggest that the Early Church became embarrassed at Jesus’ having received John’s baptism, which was a baptism of repentance, as Jesus had nothing of which to repent. Jesus’ reply to John—“Leave it thus for the time being: it is fitting that we should, in this way, do all that righteousness demands”—suggests that Our Lord wished to show that He was a pious, observant Jew. It also shows that, as one of the early Fathers of the Church pointed out, we shouldn’t be worried when Jesus does something which seems beneath His dignity as Son of God. As the Letter to the Philippians makes clear, the whole point of the Incarnation is that the Son of God was willing to abandon His dignity.
(It is not totally beside the point that someone was telling me last week about his own Anglican parish church, which had plans to make alterations to the church building. These plans were delayed because one lady objected to putting a toilet in a church, presumably on the grounds that it was improper, irreligious. It was almost as if she could not bring herself to believe that Our Lord Himself would have needed to carry out normal bodily functions.)
Be that as it may, Jesus clearly chose to be baptised. All three synoptic Gospels declare that the baptism was completed: Matthew and Mark speak of Jesus coming up from the water, whilst Luke comments that Jesus,”after His own baptism, was at prayer.” All three then describe the Holy Spirit descending on Him like a dove, and the Father’s voice identifying Him as “my Son, the Beloved”, on whom His favour rests.
Whilst Matthew reports the Father’s voice as declaring “THIS is my Son, the Beloved: my favour rests on HIM”, the other two have Him address the statement personally to Jesus: “YOU are my Son, the Beloved. My favour rests on YOU.” This implies that the Father’s words also apply to us. We are baptised into Jesus: we are parts of His Body, and so the Father is saying to each one of us: “You are my son/daughter, the Beloved. My favour rests on you.”
What we have here is the first account of the Holy Trinity “in action” as it were, as the Spirit descends on the Son, and the Father acknowledges that same Son, recognising and affirming that the man Jesus is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, present in human form. That is an awesome moment in our understanding of Jesus, recognising that He is both God and man.
There are also implications for the direction His earthly life is to take. The Father is pointing Jesus out as the Suffering Servant of the Lord spoken of by the prophet known as Deutero-Isaiah (Second Isaiah). We encounter the Suffering Servant songs particularly in Holy Week, but we have heard one of them today.
According to the prophet, the Servant is, in God’s own words, “my chosen one in whom my soul delights”. This dovetails, if you will pardon the pun, with the Father’s words at the Baptism, and indicates that Jesus, the Beloved Son, is the Servant who will bring true justice, who will be “covenant of the people and light of the nations”, who will “open the eyes of the blind, free captives from prison, and those who live in darkness from the dungeon”.
Thus, Jesus the Lord is baptised to inaugurate the Kingdom of God, and we are baptised in Him to help in the building of that Kingdom.
