BAPTISM, CONFERRAL OF A NEW IDENTITY.
January 9, 2022
The Baptism of the Lord.
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Lk 3:
22).
A Japanese proverb says: “He who wants what God wants of him
will lead a free and happy life.” And a French proverb adds: “Take away my good
name, take away my life.”
Baptism for us Christians is a special Sacrament. It is the
Sacrament of the new birth, the renewal of life, and the forgiveness of sins.
The Baptism confers on us a new identity. It makes us children of God, and so,
brothers and sisters of Christ and in Christ. It is the first sacrament of
initiation that opens us to a new life with its obligations.
About our Baptism as Christians and its effects on us the
Catechism says: “Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us
into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in
the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can
henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives
the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.”
CCC 1997.
In the Lord Jesus, however, Baptism has a quite different
impact and meaning. For Jesus, Baptism was neither purification nor adoption.
It was a revelation of his deeper identity and an opening to his mission. It
marked the starting point of his public life. Rightly, in the liturgical
calendar, the Baptism of the Lord marks the end of the childhood of Jesus and
the Christmas season and plunges us into the public life and mission of the
Lord. For the third time, after the Nativity and the Epiphany, the Lord is
today again revealed and made more public. We are living a kind of third
Theophany which becomes also a kind of “anthropomorphism”. Jesus is revealed as
true God and true man, beloved Son of God and man in mission among men. In Him
and through Him, God appears in bodily form, a man among men.
We are celebrating today, the Feast of the Baptism of the
Lord. And the readings given for our meditation are rich in teaching about the
Baptism of the Lord and our own Baptism. Through his Baptism by John on the River
Jordan, the Lord Jesus reveals to us the true face of God and our mission as
human beings.
Through the Prophet Isaiah’s vision of the Servant of the
Lord, the Lord Jesus is foreseen as one whose mission will be about bringing
comfort and consolation to the people of God. He will speak tenderly to God’s
people and tell them that their sufferings, their warfare is ended and their
sin is forgiven. At his presence, the glory of God will shine and a new day
will rise for those who were oppressed. This prophecy of Isaiah applies well to
Jesus in his public life and his mission. All that he will do after his baptism
is to reveal God’s love and bring consolation and comfort to the broken and
suffering humanity.
In the Gospel, Luke gives us a narration of the Baptism of
the Lord, what took place in the Jordan, and how he was revealed to men. We
read that after he was baptized by John, the Spirit came upon him, “And a voice
came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”” Jesus
is baptized to be revealed publicly as the beloved Son of God. He does not get
a new identity at the Baptism, but his true and deep being is made manifest.
From today, as says St. Peter in the second reading, the Lord will be going
around “doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was
with him.”
On the contrary of the Lord, Baptism for us is the conferral
of a new identity, new life, new beginning. Through our baptism, we are adopted
children of God, so, sharers in Christ's mission to be instruments of
consolation, peace, love, and revelation of God’s presence and love for our
brothers and sisters. Every baptized Christian is an “alter Christus”, another
Christ, therefore, collaborators of his mission. We have got the character of
Christ by virtue of our Baptism. Our whole life is called to become a journey
of conversion in Christ. We are challenged to be Christlike by words, actions,
and thoughts. What a wonderful world we will have, if all of us Christians, lay
and/or ordained, and all the baptized people in the death and resurrection of
Christ stand for who we really are, that is, “Alter Christus”, and do the
things we are called and baptized for, giving consolation, comfort, peace, love
to the world.
May today’s Eucharistic celebration open us to our true
mission in the world, that of becoming the light and salt of the world. May we,
like Christ, bring the peace of God to everyone we encounter and make them
savor the closeness of God.
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