The Baptism of the Lord

In Baptism of the Lord, Jesus’ divinity is made clear when God the Father proclaims “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus’s baptism also underlines the mystery of the Son of God becoming one of us.

As a human person, Jesus identified with us not only in our strengths, but in our frailty. Jesus experienced the feelings and emotions we experience. He was hungry, thirsty and wept at the death of his friend.

Jesus didn’t stand out, but looked just like the rest of us. When he stood in the synagogue in his home town, people were “amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” But they also asked, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph”? (Luke: 4:22)

He was so much like everyone around him that he asked to be baptized by John.

After his baptism, Jesus began his public ministry of teaching, preaching, healing and freeing people. Some responded, others turned away, but to those who believed he brought new life.

Those who encountered Jesus then, and today, are changed so radically that an individual can say, “It is no longer I who lives; it is Christ who lives in me.”

This transformation compels us to work to bring about justice—where everyone has what they need to have, where their dignity is respected and affirmed, and where all live in right relationship.

If we respond to the needs of others, because we share in the Divine Life through Jesus’s death and resurrection, we too, can hear those wondrous words, “This is my beloved daughter/son in whom I am well pleased.”