The Baptism Of Jesus

     According to Matthew the Evangelist:

     Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
     And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.
     And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

     [Matthew 3:13-17]

     It’s a curious episode: the Son of God submitting himself to baptism by a mortal! Why? What made it necessary, or appropriate?

     This morning’s Mass celebrant offered his thesis, which for all I know may be official Church teaching: that by accepting baptism by John, Jesus was validating Baptism as a sacrament. As Catholics believe that sacramental Baptism cleanses the new Christian of the burden of original sin, that has some weight. But it might not be a complete explanation.

     For further insight, let’s look at Jesus’s lifelong adoption of lowliness.

     Jesus was born to two poor travelers, who were far from their home. He spent his earliest hours in a manger. He spent his youth laboring alongside his father. When he undertook his ministry, he traveled Judea as a mortal, in the humblest of all modes of travel: on foot, without any money, luggage or “extra” possessions. He depended upon the generosity of those he visited for his sustenance and his shelter. He would die in the most torturous and ignominious manner of that time – and between two petty thieves!

     Accepting baptism by John was fully consistent with Jesus’s adoption of other lowly practices. Only in his miracles, most of all his Resurrection, did he display divine power and status.

     There’s a lot to ponder in there, especially in light of what Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen had to say about him:

     When God came to Earth, there was no room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. What lesson is hidden behind the inn and the stable?

     What is an inn, but the gathering-place of public opinion, the focal point of the world’s moods, the residence of the worldly, the rallying place of the fashionable and those who count in the management of the world’s affairs? What is a stable, but the place of outcasts, the refuge of beasts, and the shelter of the valueless, and therefore the symbol of those who in the eyes of public opinion do not count and hence may be ignored as of no great value or moment? Anyone in the world would have expected to find Divinity in an inn, but no one would have expected to have found it in a stable….

     If, in those days, the stars of the heavens by some magic touch had folded themselves together as silver words and announced the birth of the Expected of the Nations, where would the world have gone in search of Him?

     The world would have searched for the Babe in some palace by the Tiber, or in some gilded house of Athens, or in some inn of a great city where gathered the rich, the mighty, and the powerful ones of Earth. They would not have been the least surprised to have found the newborn King of Kings stretched out on a cradle of gold and surrounded by kings and philosophers paying Him their tribute and obeisance.

     But they would have been surprised to have discovered Him in a manger, laid on coarse straw and warmed by the breath of oxen, as if in atonement for the coldness of the hearts of men. No one would have expected that the One whose fingers could stop the turning of Arcturus would be smaller than the head of an ox; that He who could hurl the ball of fire into the heavens would one day be warmed by the breath of beasts; that He who could make a canopy of stars would be shielded from a stormy sky by the roof of a stable; or that He who made the Earth as His future home would be homeless at home. No one would have expected to find Divinity in such a condition; but that is because Divinity is always where you least expect to find it….

     The world has always sought Divinity in the power of a Babel, but never in the weakness of a Bethlehem. It has searched for it in the inns of popular opinion, but never in the stable of the ignored. It has looked for it in the cradles of gold, but never in the cribs of straw – always in power, but never in weakness.

     The Jews of First Century Judea believed that their Messiah would be a temporal leader, a warlord who would cast off the yoke of Rome and lead them to glory among the nations. They got a man in a simple robe and sandals, who sought neither power nor status. He accepted baptism from a crude wilderness figure, and went on to preach gentleness, simplicity, and repentance. Is it any wonder that so many failed to accept him?

     May God bless and keep you all.