Making Our Heavenly Daddy Proud

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

January 10, 2016

Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased (Luk 2:22).”

Why do we need to be baptized? There are two simple and obvious biblical reasons. The first point is that Jesus Himself chose to be baptized and second one is that before He ascended into heaven, He commanded baptism as the requirement of salvation (see Mark 16:16). Let us focus on the first one.

Some theological discussions have arisen due to this baptism of Jesus. Why did Jesus want to receive John’s baptism that signified the repentance of sins? Was Jesus a sinner who needed repentance? Surely no! Was John superior and more powerful than Jesus? Certainly not! Jesus is sinless and thus, baptism of John is inconsequential in this respect. So, why did Jesus insist to be plunged into water?

One possible reason is that Jesus wished to present to us the most significant effects of baptism. In today’s Gospel, we see that after Jesus came up from the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit immediately descended upon Him. If we follow also Jesus in baptism, we are assured that the Holy Spirit will also come upon us and grant His many gifts and blessings. The Holy Spirit particularly renders the salvific merit of Jesus’ death and resurrection to be efficacious in us. Thus, we are cleansed from sins, both original and actual.

After the descent of the Holy Spirit, Jesus heard the voice coming from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  This is the second effect of baptism: we are reborn to be the children of God. Like Jesus was proclaimed to be the Son of God, we share also in this glory. When the priest pours water upon our forehead or immerse us into water, all the angels in heaven rejoice exultantly because God embraces His newly born babies. Like an earthly father is exuberant to receive the good news of his newborn child, so too our heavenly Father is well pleased with us.

At birth, we were created in the image of God, and in baptism, we are re-created specifically in the image of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. As Christians, we have the supreme privilege to be called the children of God. And as the same sons and daughters of God, we gather into one community, one family with Christ as the head who is the firstborn. The community of the children of God is what we call the Church. In baptism, we receive a immediately bonus: Church’s membership.

Now, we can see the divine privileges being offered to us in baptism for free. Yet, grace is indeed free, but it is never cheap. If we read closely, after Jesus was baptized, the first thing He did was to pray. All the unique benefits of baptism only bear fruit in our lives if we persevere in faith and prayer. Nobody will believe us as the children of God, if we never pray and communicate with our Father in heaven. Everyone will jeer at us if we claim to be Christians, but we are never actively involved in the Church. Many will raise their eyebrows if we don’t know how to love and serve each other.

In the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, Jesus calls us once again to be renew our commitment as the children of God and even go deeper into the life of prayer and faith. God the Father is well-pleased with us and now this our turn to make our heavenly Daddy proud.

Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP