Homily for Feast of Baptism of the Lord

Homily for the Feast of the
Baptism of the Lord

Matt 3: 13-17
Jan. 11, 2026
Is 42: 1-4, 6-7
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

Baptism of Jesus (Giotto)

“A voice came from the heavens, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3: 17).

At Jesus’ baptism, God the Father confirms his identity and his standing as beloved and pleasing.  During his public ministry, people would say of Jesus, “He’s done all things well” (Mark 7:37).  Human approval is nice, but far more important, satisfactory, and necessary is God’s approval.

This approval of Jesus refers to his humanity, which he shares with us.  Obviously, as the eternal Son of God he didn’t need to be approved by the Father because he’s the very image of the Father, “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God” (Creed).  But as a mortal man, he began to exist in Mary’s womb when she gave her consent; he was born like us, grew in wisdom, age, and grace, and experienced everything that goes with being human, including emotions, hunger, thirst, weariness, and temptation.  He had to learn to walk, to read and write, and to handle the tools of the carpenter’s craft.

God the Father voices complete satisfaction with Jesus, Mary’s Son:  he’s beloved and fully pleasing.

What is it that makes Jesus of Nazareth so pleasing to our heavenly Father?  Listen to what he told John the Baptist:  “It’s fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15).  “Righteousness” means being in a right relationship with God.  To be fully righteous, a man or woman’s heart and soul, mind and will, must be completely aligned with or in harmony with God.

Jesus is so aligned, so harmonized, with his Father.  The Father acknowledges that with his proclamation, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  That’s signified further by the descent of the Spirit of God upon Jesus (3:16).  Jesus the man is filled with the Holy Spirit and will be empowered to do the work of the Spirit in his public ministry and in all who receive the gift of the Spirit.

Bernini's Glory (detail)

That Holy Spirit is given to us at Baptism.  The sacred water of the sacrament makes us, like Jesus, beloved children of God, well pleasing to him.  And it commissions us to walk in the Spirit and do the Spirit’s work, as Jesus did.

Our 1st reading, from Is 42, announced the presence of a servant of the Lord “upon whom I have put my spirit” (42:1).  In the light of what happened at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, we recognize him as that servant of the Lord.  The Lord’s servant is to “bring forth justice to the nations” (42:1) to “establish justice on the earth” (42:4).  The Lord has called his servant “for the victory of justice …, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement” (42:6-7).

That justice may be read as a just or right relationship with God, and certainly that was Jesus’ mission, thru his forgiving sins and empowering us to live virtuously.  Opening blind eyes may be read as enabling us to see the presence of evil in our hearts and in how we live, so that we can choose to walk in God’s light.  Jesus sets us free from the prison of our sins.

But the Spirit of God in Jesus did more than spiritual work.  He healed people.  He welcomed outcasts and foreigners as children of God.  He called upon his followers to care for the poor and to forgive offenses.  This is a different form of justice and liberation.

We who follow Jesus, we who claim that his Holy Spirit is alive in us, also have to forgive, to welcome, to heal, to set people free—first of all, within our own families, then within our communities, such as our parish, our workplace, and our school, and finally within our wider society, our culture, and our politics.  The Spirit of God, the Spirit of justice, the Spirit of liberation, has no room for prejudice, for exclusion, for divisiveness, for character assassination, or for violence (“A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench” [42:3]).  As Christians, we are called to bring the Spirit of Jesus into our real lives by caring for the needy, welcoming strangers, healing the sick, and advocating for justice for everyone.

“It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness,” to bring God’s own Spirit into our families and our society.  If we try to do that, at the end of our lives, we’ll hear God’s voice from heaven, “You are my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.”