This evening, the Christmas season comes to a close, and tomorrow we step back in to Ordinary Time. Later on today or at nightfall, many of us will be taking down the decorations and lights that started coming out during Advent, our Nativity scenes will be carefully boxed up and set aside, until God willing next year rolls around. But today we are still celebrating Christmas, as we commemorate the Baptism of the Lord. I find it fitting, that in her infinite wisdom, Holy Mother Church has seen fit to celebrate The Baptism of the Lord before leaving the manger. On this day, the last of this Holy Season, we’re invited to contemplate the manifestation of the Blessed Trinity at the Jordan River, where Christ’s salvific mission was formally ushered in, and the waters were sanctified in preparation for our baptism into the Mystical Body of Christ.

“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.” These prophetic words from today’s first reading were fulfilled with the Baptism or Our Lord. The significance of His Baptism, and its connection to His birth, reveal to us how we are to approach God by illuminating the truth of how God has revealed Himself to man.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” With His Incarnation, God lowered Himself. Assuming human nature, He became man while remaining God; Jesus is true God and true man. He is like us in all things but sin. Therefore there was no need for Him to be baptized with the baptism of repentance that John was offering. But, at the Jordan River once again, Jesus condescended and humbled Himself, standing along side those in need of repentance and entered into the murky waters. With that, His public life and mission are inaugurated by an act of humility that opens up the heavens that were once closed to mankind by Adam’s sinful pride, and the love of the Blessed Trinity was made manifest in nature. Heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in form like a dove, as The Father’s voice proclaimed, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
The imagery of this event calls to mind the Spirit of God moving over the waters at the creation of the earth, as well as the Dove that returned to Noah with an olive branch as the waters began to subside after the great flood. The catechism rightly teaches us that at the Baptism of our Lord, “the waters were sanctified by the descent of the Jesus and the Holy Spirit, a prelude to the new creation.”
The Baptism of Jesus was a prelude to his coming passion, his going down into the waters akin to His death and burial, while his rising out of the waters, being greeted by the descent of the Holy Spirit and the voice of The Father points to His resurrection. Out of love for us, God offers man new life in Him through the Sacrament of Baptism. For us baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water and in the word. While our plunging into the waters is symbolic of our burial into Christ’s death we truly arise as new creatures, freed from sin, reborn as children of God, and incorporated in the Church as members of His Mystical Body. It is good for us to frequently call to mind the fact that, by our own baptism, we were made new creatures in Christ who humbled Himself for our sake. The only reason that we can be reconciled with God, know His love for us, and partake in His Divine Nature, is because he humbled Himself and became man. That reality, knowing what God submitted Himself to, should help us to see the infinite value of every human life and reject all thing that pose a threat to its being lived to out to its fullest from conception to natural death. It should also stir within us a great desire to remain grafted on the vine, by seeking reconciliation with God when we fall from grace.
It was through acts of humility that Jesus revealed the depths of the Divine Love we have been invited into. Confessing personal sin is a humbling, it can be difficult but take solace knowing that in that act of humility you are behaving in a God-like fashion, setting aside pride for love. A recent theologian, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, wrote and I’m paraphrasing, Know that you are worth so much that you do not have the right to deprive yourself of the life God wants to give you, or to deprive God of the irreplaceable love he seeks in you. Let that sink in for moment, You are worth so much that you do not have the right to deprive yourself of the life God wants to give you, or to deprive God of the irreplaceable love he seeks in you.
Know that that is true with the understanding that He not only loves you with undying love, he loves those who annoy you with that same love. God is Love, and He loves the most hardened sinner and humbled himself for the most prideful person that has been, or ever will be born. “He gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own”.
With His humble act of accepting a baptism he was not in need of, Christ’s salvific mission was ushered in, Heaven was opened up for the great Epiphany of the Blessed Trinity, and the waters were sanctified for your baptism. As we put way our Christmas decorations and Nativity scenes, take time to look through the wood of the manger, to the wood of the cross. Recall the how humbly love was brought into the world and was made flesh then commit to living out your baptism with renewed vigor as a new creation in Christ, following His example with a life of humble service out of love for God and neighbor. Merry Christmas