Throughout Israel's long history of Messianism the issue always boiled down to how God was to put things right and bring justice where due to his people.
Today's readings include one of Isaiah's marvelous 'servant songs' in which he identifies a suffering servant with whom God is pleased, rather than a political Messiah the people expected, a suffering Messiah, rather than one who makes people suffer.
The Gosple account of Jesus's baptism further identifies this servant in Jesus. The opening of the heavens, the dove-like descent of the Spirit, and the voice from above all signify that Christ opened up communication between heaven and Earth.
Jesus was a man among men, and Judaism found the humanity of God in Jesus disturbing. It also had a major problem with his openness towards those who did not belong to the fold.
In Acts, we read that Peter had the same problem when entering Cornelius' house. We encounter a similar problem today when we think of God and want to make Him in our own image. The Church has its rules. Judaism also had its rules, which Jesus acknowledged but went beyond, establishing the golden rule that the Sabbath is for man not vice-versa.
Baptism is the anointing with the Spirit and the beginning of new times. As Peter says in the second reading: "God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil".
Unfortunately, our understanding of baptism has impoverished the biblical vision and become symptomatic of an inward-looking Church. We believe that baptism takes away original sin and makes us members of the Church. But baptism is much more than that.
Baptism can have two meanings: one of segregation, insisting on an identity of separation; the other of sending, in the sense of outreach. This second meaning acknowledges that "God shows no partiality". At times, baptism was taken to be an 'entrance ticket', a sacrament giving a static identity, whereas actually it is meant to open us up to go out in the world.
"The truth I have now come to realise," says Peter, "is that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to Him". We need to open up our eyes and realise certain things before it's too late.
Although it does not necessarily prefigure Jesus, Isaiah's vision of Yahweh's servant who would bring nations true justice says much about Jesus and the task or mission of Christians and the Church.
The connection between baptism and our Christian understanding of justice is not always self-evident. But that is what baptism is for. Being in a state of mission actually gives the Church true meaning and purpose. Being baptised means being sent. We are Christ's true Church to the extent that we bring justice to the world. Otherwise, we remain a closed Church risking to fail miserably to complete the mission Christ inaugurated in the river Jordan.
The difficulties Peter faced to enter the house Cornelius because the latter was a pagan shows that already at its inception, Christianity had to face this risk.
In the river Jordan, at the hands of John the Baptist, Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross was inaugurated, but we can understand the God's ultimate and complete act of love in Jesus crucified only in the light of Isaiah's vision of the way justice can be brought to the nations.