St. Mark describes a powerful moment in today's Gospel: A popular, gentle, and thoughtful man named John asks people who would admit to their sinfulness and wanted to change their lives to come forward and be baptized. Many did, stepping into the Jordan River where John plunged them into the water, then back to the surface, re-born and reinvigorated with a renewed sense of mission and calling.
In the crowd stands a carpenter. He, too, enters the river and is plunged into the water by John. ...
St. Mark describes a powerful moment in today's Gospel: A popular, gentle, and thoughtful man named John asks people who would admit to their sinfulness and wanted to change their lives to come forward and be baptized. Many did, stepping into the Jordan River where John plunged them into the water, then back to the surface, re-born and reinvigorated with a renewed sense of mission and calling.
In the crowd stands a carpenter. He, too, enters the river and is plunged into the water by John. According to St. Mark, there is no dramatic scene as movie versions of this story would have us believe. Instead, St. Mark says only that Jesus saw the heavens open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him, and He heard God saying He was pleased with Him. While this scene loses a dramatic effect by being a private revelation to Jesus, it gains much when we think about today's reading from Isaiah. Like Jesus, who knew those words so well, we can recognize that He was fulfilling the prophet's words, that He was the messianic servant promised by God.
The incident must have been quite comforting to Jesus' human nature, knowing that all those inner promptings came from His Father. It must have given Him the courage He needed to begin His complicated mission.
Our Gospel passage teaches us what is expected of a servant of God. John is doing what God calls him to do: inviting people to repent, accept their sinfulness, and be washed clean in the water of life. He accepts no credit for being a great person. He tells everyone who listens that his Baptism will be replaced by the Baptism of Him who is to come. His concern is not himself but of his mission, which is to serve others.
In Coventry, England, a beautiful modern cathedral has been built on the site of a great medieval edifice that stood there for over 600 years until bombs destroyed it during World War II. The new cathedral is connected to the ruins of the old cathedral.
Guides tell the story of the day when the cross was welded to the top of the new cathedral's lantern; a crowd gathered to watch. As the welder ascended to the lantern, he realized that the scaffolding was not high enough. So, he returned to the ground and announced that they would have to wait until higher scaffolding was erected.
Out of the crowd stepped a broad-shouldered man who asked the welder if he could work standing on a man's shoulders. While the crowd watched in amazement, the two men climbed to the top of the cathedral, and the one held the other perfectly still on his shoulders while he welded the cross in place.
The people watched as the welder finished and stepped down to the scaffolding. When he was safely on his own feet, the man who had been holding him collapsed and lay motionless. Other workers quickly ascended the scaffold and carried the unconscious man to the ground where they discovered that he was burned terribly from the molten lead that had dripped all over his shoulders and arms.
He made a tremendous gesture, walked forward to do a marvelous thing, and carried through to the end of it despite the suffering inflicted upon him by his choice.
How like John the Baptist this young man was. He probably thought only to do one thing, hold a man on his shoulders for awhile, but once he had committed himself, he had to stand fast while molten lead dropped on him. But he saw it through to the end as John did.
And if John's life teaches us this lesson, so too does Jesus, who carries the lesson further. He, sinless, accepted the sins of humankind and began a salvific journey that ended on Good Friday as he was nailed to the Cross for our sins.
The commemoration of the Baptism of Jesus should be for all of us, one of those loving calls from God to repentance. He wants us to be more grateful for the life He has given us. And He wants us to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on the future he has earned for us. If we keep that future before us, our earthly troubles will appear in their true light - as bumps but not deterrents to the life to come.
If we trust that our Baptism, like Christ's, was a moment in which God said, "In you, I am well pleased." Then we will have the courage to live the Gospel in our lives, helping those in need and recognizing that our role is an important one as we move closer to the kingdom of heaven.+
