Today’s readings: Isaiah 42, 1-4.6-7; Acts 10, 34-38; Matthew 3, 13-17.

The baptism of the Lord provides a framework for us wherein to understand our being members of the Church through baptism as not something inward looking. The very character of baptism, writes Stanley Hauerwas, professor of Theolgical Ethics, challenges any presumption that might tempt Christians arrogantly to think they can separate themselves from the world.

The baptism of Jesus is the first event in his public ministry and his obedience to the will of the Father is nowhere more manifest than in the river Jordan. Jesus’ response to John’s embarrassment, “Let it be so for now”, anticipates his prayer in Gethsemane. It is in this way that all righteousness will be fulfilled, that is, through Jesus’ obedience.

Jesus, though without sin, submits to John’s baptism, identifying himself completely with our humanity that is bent by sin. Baptism is an apocalyptic act of the beginning of a new age – Jesus’ response to sin, described in Isaiah as the quiet work of justice. Through baptism we are made human beings after the likeness of Christ, who was exactly what God meant humans to be.

In Christ we are anointed as kings used to be anointed to govern. Yet his governance is of a different kind. He governs us through his unfolding presence in our lives marked mainly with mercy and patience. His word is unwavering, yet “he does not break the crusted reed, nor quench the wavering flame”. His judgment is also forgiveness, he is able to wait so as not to do violence to the heart.

In baptism we are all anointed with this same mission as indicated by Isaiah of bringing justice to the world. Our proclamation of faith is never an end in itself. It only makes sense in view of what builds and sustains humanity and what makes the lives of many more humane. Outside the project of humanity, which is after all, God’s own project, the Church makes no sense at all.

With Peter, as we read in Acts, we need to open our eyes and say, “Now I see!” Peter was the man of Pentecost, yet he had not grasped everything. Who knows how much we still have to grasp? The world needs a more humble and humane Church in the likeness of Christ, a pilgrim Church which lives provisionally in the power of the Spirit.

When Peter went to the pagan Cornelius, many Christians were scandalised. But it was only after listening to him that Peter realised how God really operates beyond the confines of the institution.

This is baptism’s double meaning: it can be seen as a prerogative which differentiates and separates; or it can be seen in its messianic meaning as the establishment of justice which, as it is understood in the Scriptures, is the covenant between God and humanity, and between people.

The Church cannot risk segregating itself from what is happening in the world, and how this is affecting humanity. Our major concern should not be why people don’t attend Mass, but why people live such fragmented lives that make humane existence so difficult.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in his book Dostoevsky. Language, Faith and Fiction, wrote that the question is not so much “Does God exist?”, as “What might be involved in a life that would merit being called a life of faith?”

Jesus’ humanity disturbs us. Even the fact that Jesus presented himself in the Jordan waters to be baptised disturbs us. We may be surprised when it comes to talk about God.

Jacques Ellul, a French philosopher, sociologist and lay theologian, in Anarchy and Christianity, wrote “No matter what God’s power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master. It is that of the God who puts Himself on our human level and limits himself.”

We have narrowed down too much the meaning of our baptism as a rite, administered mainly to newborns, with the understanding that it forgives original sin. Our pastoral strategies – with our minds at rest as long as people are baptised – badly need a rethinking.

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