Baptism of the Lord
Mark 1: 7-11
Collect (alternate)
Jan. 11, 2015
Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y.
“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in
the Jordan by John” (Mark 1: 9).
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St. Mark gives us the bare-bones version of Jesus’ baptism by John—the
verse I just repeated, and 2 more about the appearance of the Holy Spirit and
the pronouncement of the Father (1:10-11).
Was it Jesus alone who saw and heard these phenomena, or did John also,
or any bystanders? You’d think that
something so remarkable, if witnessed, would cause a stir. We have no evidence of that.
So, the way Mark tells the story, only Jesus witnesses these wondrous
phenomena. Some interpreters hold that from
this whole experience—John’s preaching, his baptism, the descent of the Spirit
upon him, and the Father’s affirmation—Jesus as man comes to understand who he
is and what his mission is.
Be that as it may, Mark, Matthew, and Luke all agree that Jesus’ next
step will be a spiritual retreat of 40 days, fasting and praying in the
wilderness and being tempted by the devil.
(One of those passages is always our gospel reading on the 1st Sunday of
Lent.) Jesus will emerge from that
retreat to begin his public ministry.
The experience of his baptism and his 40 days of communion with his
Father are transformative for Jesus—not in his essence, for he was always the
Son of God and always filled with the Spirit; but what happened at his baptism
and in the desert transforms the course of his incarnated life. From the life of a quiet and pious carpenter
in Nazareth (we presume, without any authentic knowledge, that he followed
Joseph’s trade), he takes up the life of a preacher, healer, bringer of God’s
love and mercy, and becomes the redeemer of the human race. The divinity hidden within him for 30 years
will now “appear in our very flesh,” as our Collect notes—appear
effectively. Outwardly like us, he’s
inwardly filled with the Spirit of God—this is now made manifest—and is able to
give that Spirit to his fleshly brothers and sisters. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit,”
John preaches (1:8).
Our prayer this evening in the Collect was “that we might be inwardly
transformed through him.” Christ shares
our human nature, and in him our nature has been suffused with grace by the
descent of the Spirit. In Christ our
nature is again—for the 1st time since Adam’s fall—pleasing to the Father.
We pray that we—individually, you and I, each of us here; and every
believer—might be transformed thru our union with Christ, the God-man so
Spirit-filled, so pleasing to our Father.
We pray for an inward
transformation, for outwardly we already resemble Christ, “who shares our
humanity in order that we might share in his divinity.” If it sounds radical that we should share in
Christ’s divinity, recall that this is a teaching of the Fathers of the Church,
and it’s also a prayer at every Mass, whispered (usually, following the rubric)
by the priest as he adds water to the cup of wine. Christ in his human nature receives the Holy
Spirit so that human nature might be entirely renewed and made whole.[1]
What happens when we are “inwardly transformed” and become like
Christ? What are the indications that
our nature is being divinized, being suffused with the grace of the Holy
Spirit? We cast out of our lives the
disfigurement of sin so that the Holy Spirit may reconfigure us into the
likeness of Christ—and for that of course we need plenty of divine help: the grace of the sacraments of Reconciliation
and the Eucharist, the graces of our particular vocations, and the power that
comes from the Word of God that we listen to, read, and take into our hearts. We become more concerned to hear the Father’s
voice, to listen to what the Father asks of us, to attune our wills and desires
and aspirations to God’s will, like Jesus.
The inward transformation of our hearts and souls gives birth to an
outward transformation of our lives, so that we become servants of our brothers
and sisters like Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45); who
washed his apostles’ feet (John 13:1-17); who patiently taught and healed; who
gave his life to ransom us from Satan’s power (cf. Mark 10:45). Thru us, when we’ve been inwardly
transformed, the Spirit testifies to God’s love for all his children: “In this way we know that we love the
children of God when we love God and obey his commandments” (1 John 5:2),
particularly the commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved us: to forgive, to heal, to show mercy.
May the Holy Spirit, who descended on us in our sacramental Baptism and
Confirmation and who remains close to us every day, truly transform us into
God’s children in our thoughts, words, and deeds.
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