Embracing Our Baptism: A Call to Transformation

"There's so many great gifts that we get to celebrate throughout the Christmas season, and it's really poignant that the church ends the Christmas season with Jesus going into his public ministry. I mean, we've been celebrating his birth and the incarnation and Emmanuel, God with us, and the miracle of the virgin birth. And here's Christ going into the Jordan River as an adult to begin his ministry. And I think as we look at the entirety of Christ's earthly life, we can see it's one fully about gift and about service, and it's about laying down his life for all of us." [00:00:36]

"And so part of our own praying is how we're a part of that relationship of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father and the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, how we're part of that relationship in God. And the reality is that for us, it comes through baptism. And so when we're baptized, we're made adopted sons and daughters of the Father. And this beautiful scene where Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River and the voice from heaven is heard, Father, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased, or listen to him on another passage." [00:01:09]

"And secondly, that we're made members of the church community, the body of Christ, the community of believers. We call it a christening rite because it makes us Christian. When one gets baptized, one is made a Christian. And thirdly, the gift of the Holy Spirit is given. St. Paul talks so beautifully that the body becomes the temple and God's Spirit dwells within us through the gift of baptism. So these three great gifts are given to us, and especially as young ones, by the gifts of our parents, by the desire of our parents, and them making that profession of faith for us." [00:03:32]

"And as St. Peter's talking so beautifully about here, one of the great points in all of the scriptures that's so important, you know, really for all of us to pray with on a regular basis, is Peter says, I see that God shows no partiality. It was a really a scandalous thing for the Jewish religious leadership of the first century when they assumed and believed that they were the chosen ones. They were the special ones. They were the ones set aside. They were the ones that received the law. They were the ones that were different from everybody else out in the world." [00:04:42]

"And all of a sudden, Peter realizes, the apostles realize, when they see the Holy Spirit come down upon everybody who's getting baptized, Jew and Greek alike, God showed no partiality, so we can't either. You know, we have to act in this particular way. This is his point. And I think, you know, we see that in light of Christ entering into baptism and kind of really the scandal of God coming for everybody, which was not what was expected by the Jewish first century world for the Messiah. He was coming for them. He was coming to kick out the Romans." [00:05:16]

"We see very clearly that when baptism is, when Jesus enters into baptism, it also, in the early church, caused a bit of scandal. It was a challenge for them to make sense of because John was baptizing for repentance. John was baptizing for forgiveness. John was baptizing, you know, the soldiers who were coming out, and he was challenging them, stop using your power and authority over people. He was baptizing the tax collectors. Stop stealing from people. He was baptizing, you know, any of the Jewish religious leaders who wanted it." [00:06:06]

"And so the church had to wrestle with this. And what does that mean? You know, he obviously didn't need forgiveness. And what does it mean that he allowed himself to enter into this that everybody else was getting for forgiveness? And I think it gets at one of the couple points that I think are so powerful in the scriptures and, you know, often hear people look at stories in the gospel or things of Jesus and say, well, he was limited by the culture. He could only do X, Y, or Z, or male priesthood is probably one of them." [00:06:52]

"The church ultimately takes it to a place where it takes many of the things of Jesus's life. And St. Athanasius in the early church is one of the great saints who talked about it. He said, Jesus assumed everything of the world unto himself, for if he didn't assume it, it wasn't redeemed on the cross. And likewise, sin. And through baptism, he assumes the sin of the world, and he enters into the waters of baptism so that we would do it as well. In every way, Christ, and even to his death, in every way, Christ goes through everything before us." [00:08:06]

"And so a baptism is our response that we want him with us, that we want him with us in everything that we are, and that we accept what he wants to give us. And that acceptance obviously results in a response. And so I think, you know, as we pray in a thanksgiving for our parents today, for baptizing us, and for baptizing us in the church, and for the gifts that are given to us in baptism, the response is always, how do I better live out my baptismal status, that I'm a daughter or son of the Father, that God dwells within me, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, that my body is a temple, and that I'm called to have a reverence for what this body is and what God's given to us, for it's all gift." [00:09:04]

"And having a reverence for the gift so that the gift is used in a response to be grateful and thankful to God through our yes. Yes to the baptism. It's what we say when we say amen to the Eucharist. It's saying yes, you know, to him here. Yes to what he offers. Yes to the forgiveness. Yes to the healing that's offered. Yes to the Holy Spirit. Yes to the challenge to live a Christian life. And so I think as we pray this day and asking for maybe a bit renewal and our desire to walk the Christian in life, a desire to understand a little deeper what it means to be configured to Christ in our baptismal status and realize that it is something that does try to elicit out of us what is truly best for us and call that best response out of each and every one of us." [00:09:40]

"And so in a real spirit of thanksgiving as we pray the mass and really see Jesus walking into the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit coming down upon him to make a point of who he is so that John could point him out. Ultimately, the point the father makes is listen to him. Pay attention. This is my beloved son. Allow him to be the one for you, the one who guides all of us. And so as we recommit ourselves, I think, to our baptismal status and to him in a heart of gratitude for his willingness to enter into the waters of baptism for us, we just ask the Lord to continue to challenge us and guide us and open us up to what he wills for each of our lives and respond." [00:10:15]