Homily for the Baptism of the Lord
The word of the day is immersion.
Today the Church closes out the Christmas season with the baptism of Jesus. The word ‘baptism’ in its original Greek comes from a word that means immersion. In other words, today the Church celebrates the immersion of Jesus into this world.
The question: Jesus was immersed into the world for your sake. Are you immersed in the life of Jesus?
To answer that question, let’s first form an image of the word immersion. Imagine jumping off a diving board into a pool of water. There is a clap of noise as your body makes contact with the water. There’s a big splash. People on the edge of the pool get wet. Waves go racing to the sides of the pool. You sink to the watery depths. The water ultimately pushes you up. You break the surface. You gulp for air.
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Let’s now compare jumping into a pool with the three great ‘theophanies’ we celebrate during the Christmas season: the Nativity, the Epiphany, and the Baptism.
The Nativity is like the initial contact with the water. The infinite and all-powerful God is born into space and time. The angels clap. The shepherds hear the good news and go to see what this is all about. They depart from the infant singing ‘glory to God in the highest’.
The Epiphany is like the splash and the waves. The Magi, gazing at the sky, get a little wet. They follow the source of this splash, in reality a star at its rising. In addition, Herod and all powers of the world see the waves threatening to overthrow their kingdoms. The child born has manifested the divine presence and power of God.
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The Baptism is like the plunge underwater. Jesus was completely immersed into the world.
He did it in the most unusual way. Elbow to elbow Jesus walked with habitual sinners toward the muddy waters of the Jordan river: tax collectors, prostitute, soldiers. He even walked with some scribes and Pharisees.
These broken people were coming to John to be baptized for the repentance of their sins. Jesus had no sin, so one might ask, “Why did he seek a baptism?”
One of the Church fathers, Saint Maximus of Turin, answers the question this way: “Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy… for when the Savior is washed all water for our baptism is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages.”
In other words, Jesus didn’t need the waters of baptism, the waters needed Jesus.
In a similar manner, Jesus doesn’t need anything from us. But we need Jesus. We need to immerse our lives into the life of Jesus.
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How do we immerse ourselves into his divine life. Looking at the readings today, two words stand out and might provide a guide. The words are: Come and love.
In the vision of Isaiah (55:1-11), the prophet says the word ‘come’ time and time again:
Come to me if you’re thirsty. Come to me if you hungry. Come heedfully. Come and listen to me. Come and you shall have life. The prophet is speaking to people who feel abandoned by God and strangers in the land.
Jesus says the same words to us today: Come to me if you are hungry for justice or thirsty for peace. Heed my words of hope and promise. End the wounds of sin and division. Come to me if you want meaning and purpose. Come, immerse your life into mine.
The First Letter of John (5:1-9) gives us the second word to show us how to immerse our life into the life of Jesus. Love. Love the Father. If you love the Father you will love the Son. If you love the Father and the Son, you will love the commandments, especially the commandment of love. If you love the commandments, you will love all the children of God.
Jesus immersed himself into this world to reveal the love of the Father. He showed us how to love. He walked with the sinners into the Jordan. He advocated for those living on the margins and shared table fellowship with the outcasts. He did the unthinkable and washed the feet of his disciples. He hung on the cross between two thieves. After all this, he said, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
If you want to immerse your life into the life of Jesus, you need to love as Jesus loved – gentle and humble of heart, to all.
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If you immerse your life into the life of Jesus, you may end up in the pool way over your head. Jesus, however, will lift you up to the surface where you can breathe into your lungs the life of the Holy Spirit.
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Let me finish with a quote from Saint Gregory, who also paints a picture of being immersed, baptized, into the life of Christ: “Jesus wants you to become a living force for all humanity, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – through not in its fullness – a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the on e God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to who be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.”