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The Baptism of Jesus Pat Collins C.M. author and lecturer in spirituality at All Hallows College, Dublin, continues his series on the new mysteries of light which the Pope has instituted to celebrate the year of the rosary. This issue he meditates on the meaning of the first mystery "The Baptism of Jesus" and what this might mean for our own Christian lives
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Firstly, he became more consciously aware of the Father's infinite love for him as the Son of God endowed with every perfection of divinity. Pope Paul VI observed in part three of his encyclical On Christian Joy: "Jesus.....knows that He is loved by His Father. When He is baptized on the banks of the Jordan, this love, which is present from the first moment of His Incarnation, is manifested… This certitude is inseparable from the consciousness of Jesus. It is a presence which never leaves Him all alone.….For Jesus it is not a question of a passing awareness. It is the reverberation in His human consciousness of the love that He has always known as God in the bosom of the Father." This awareness found its quintessential expression in the address, "Abba Father." Secondly, at his baptism, Jesus recognized that he was the promised Messiah. The people were expecting a political liberator who would begin by ridding them of the cruel yoke of Roman rule before going on to spread God's sovereignty throughout the world. But at the moment of his anointing by the Spirit, Jesus realized that his vocation was to be the suffering servant referred to by the prophet Isaiah. So although his baptism was a time of ecstatic happiness, there were already intimations of the cross to come. As the suffering servant Jesus would eventually be "despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief " Is 53:3.
As Paul reminds us in Rm 6:4 and elsewhere, Christians participate in the baptism and mission of Jesus in and through their sacramental baptism and their subsequent awareness of the presence, love and activity of God in their lives through their baptism in the Spirit. As St Paul said so eloquently: "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" 2 Cor 4:6. As a result we come to know that: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you" Jn 15:9. We also come to acknowledge that we are children of God: "to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" Jn 1:12. As such we are called to share in the mission and charismatic powers of Jesus himself: "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father" Jn 14:12-13
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Thirdly,
as a result of his baptismal experience, Jesus became aware of his
mission. He expressed it clearly in his local synagogue, in Nazareth,
when he read these words: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has
sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight
for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the
Lord's favour" Luke 4:18-19. As the evangelizer of the poor
he was called to show to others, especially those who were "sad
and dejected like sheep without a shepherd" Mt 9:36, the
same unconditional and unrestricted love that God was showering on
him. God wanted all his words and actions to be rooted in that love,
to express that love and to foster that same love among those who
believed in him. Jesus was completely faithful to his baptismal identity
and mission. Years later, St Peter was able to say of him: "You
know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after
the baptism that John preached - how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good
and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God
was with him" Acts 10:37-38.
