As the Nativity of the Lord marks the fulfillment of the promise of the Lord, and the Epiphany of the Lord marks the appearance of God in our midst, so the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord marks the transformation of the created order. As the Feast of the Baptism ends the Christmas Season, it brings with it a new beginning, one in which we experience anew our ontological change through the waters of our own Baptism.

Amidst the goodness of creation, and the intimacy of the relationship between God and his first creation, sin nonetheless entered the world. The effect of that sin – alienation from God, from creation, and from one another, was not only immediate in the lives of Adam and Eve. It also disrupted the entire order of creation. This sin also set on path the eternal plan of Salvation to be fulfilled in Christ and the Paschal Mystery. Jesus not only restores that which was lost, he lays the foundation for all of us to experience the Salvation promised from the beginning. This brings forth a new economy of Salvation, one that is expressed in those outward signs of grace we call the Sacraments. The first of these, the gateway Sacrament, is Baptism.

As the Sacraments do what they intend to do, both in the life of the individual and specifically to the Body of Christ, the Church, then each celebration of those Sacraments impacts the whole. The effects of Baptism, as with each of the Sacraments, express the ongoing and present reality of the Holy Spirit acting in our world. These effects are universal, so while they happen in a specific time and place, and most certainly to specific persons, the transformative nature of the Sacrament always changes the world.

For the Feast, our First Reading, from the prophet Isaiah, speaks of the transformation of the world which is a sign of the coming of the Messiah. The desert becomes a rife with flowing water sprouting new life; the mountains and valleys are smoothed so that the people of Judah can be restored to their homeland. It is this sense of restoration of God’s created order that we celebrate in the Feast of the Baptism. The Spirit, who hovered over the waters of creation, now hovers over the waters of the River Jordan. Jesus steps into the water, not so that he is transformed, but so that he might restore the original grace of creation. As when Jesus touches the leper, the blind, and the deaf, he takes on the sinfulness and brokenness of creation, and makes it sacred. Jesus doesn’t need the waters of Baptism; the waters of the world need him.
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John the Baptizer calls the people to repentance, to seek forgiveness of their sins. The magnitude of their response shows us that they lived in the hope that God would renew and restore them, his people to their kingdom, and that they might know peace and security. But more than that, they also longed for a relationship with God, to encounter the Lord in new ways. There is a desire to be released from the burden of the Law so as to be free, not from the Law, but to worship the Lord.

This desire is so deep within them that they confused the invitation of John to conversion with the miraculous work of the Messiah. The work of the Messiah is to not only proclaim the “Good News” but to be the very embodiment of that Good News. Jesus doesn’t just proclaim the Gospel, he is the Gospel.

Through the waters of our own Baptism we leave behind our sins and enter into the hope and promise of the Gospel. This great outpouring of God’s manifold grace comes with a cost. Baptism removes us from the world of sin and affords us entry into the eternal kingdom. But we can easily reject the promise and turn away from the Gospel. The business of our lives and our selfish concerns can cause us to forget the many graces and blessings that we receive through our reception of the Sacraments. Our challenge is to renew our baptismal commitment, reject sin, and embrace the Gospel.

Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.