Why was Jesus baptized? Sinless, he had no need of John’s baptism of repentance. He had no sins to be washed away. Even John the Baptist wonders why he is there!
Our Lord’s birth and his baptism were years apart, but liturgically they are brought together because they share a common purpose. Archbishop Sheen wrote, “The object of his baptism was the same as the object of his birth, to identify with sinful humanity. In Bethlehem we encounter him as one of us. At the Jordan we encounter him freely choosing to be identified with us sinners. Our Lord’s baptism points us to the very reason Jesus came into the word—to take all sin upon himself. In the waters of the Jordan. Jesus anticipates his saving death.
So we could say that Jesus’ baptism is “a piece of the downward trend of his Incarnation.” Think of it! In humility and love, Jesus descends to earth at his birth and throughout the Gospels we can see how he continues to descend on our behalf—the manger, the flight into Egypt, his obedience to his Mother Mary and St. Joseph in Nazareth, his association of tax collectors and sinners, his crucifixion between common criminals, to his burial in a stranger’s tomb.
The baptism of Jesus prompts us to think of our own. There is a connection. Just as our Lord’s baptism set the pattern of our Lord’s life, so our baptism should bring unity and purpose to our own. We often see baptism simply as the beginning of the Christian life but it should be the pattern of our life.
We don’t leave our baptism at the font. It must carry us through life. Like our Lord’s baptism, it is a pattern of our life. Every day is a dying and rising...isn’t it? Each day we strive in humility and love to die to our selfish desires, to our pride and to the world’s temptations so that we can rise to new life in Christ.
This is the reason we take holy water and cross ourselves upon entering the church—to remind ourselves of our baptism commitment to be lived daily. It is an action never to be done in haste but reverently.
The late Cardinal Suenens said, “It agonizes me to think that we have so many baptized and so few Christians. Every time we take water from the font, thank the Lord for the grace and life given in baptism. We should think of our commitment to rise to the challenge of dying and rising.
Fr. Nouwen to whom I go so often, expresses this in the following prayer:
Help me, O Lord, to let my old self die, to let die the thousand big and small ways in which I am still building up my false self and trying to cling to my false desires. There is so much in me that needs to die; false attachments, greed and anger, impatience and stinginess. I am self-centered, concerned about myself, my career, my future. I see clearly now how little I have died with you, really gone your way and been faithful to it. Let me be reborn in you and see, through you, the word in the right way, so that all my actions, words, and thoughts can become a hymn of praise to you.
