The feast of the Baptism of our Lord recently celebrated, brings the season of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus to a conclusion.  The synoptic Gospels tell us what happened when he was baptized.

As soon as Jesus was baptised, heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily shape, like a dove.  “And a voice spoke from heaven, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.”

Every detail in those words is heavily pregnant with meaning: the heaven opened, the Holy Spirit descended, and a voice came from heaven. 

Each of these details is teaching us that the baptism of our Lord Jesus marked a new beginning in the relationship between heaven and earth, between God and human beings.  Those words are teaching us about the baptism of our Lord and about our own baptism too. Let us examine each of these details.

“Heaven opened.” 

The Book of Genesis tells us that after Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God, God expelled man from the Garden of Eden.  And, after banishing man from the garden, he posted great winged creatures and the fiery flashing sword to guard the place so that man would not have access to the tree of life. 

The garden was where man had access to God.  After the sin of disobedience, the presence of God was no longer accessible to man.  But with the baptism of Jesus, things changed. Heaven opened.  With heaven opened, man can now regain access to God.  The baptism of Jesus opened the way for a new relationship with God. 

Sin broke the relationship between God and man.  The baptism of Jesus healed the broken relationship between God and man.  Jesus who needed no baptism went to be baptized.  He went into the waters of baptism not to be purified by the water, but to purify the waters, so that, when we are washed in the waters of baptism, the waters of baptism purified by Jesus at his baptism will purify us of sin.  Heaven opened for us when we were baptized so that we can gain access to the presence of God.  Heaven opened for us at baptism because the baptism of the Son of God opened heaven for us.

“He saw the Spirit of God descending.”     

The sign that heaven opened is the descent of the Holy Spirit.  It is because heaven opened that the Holy Spirit came down from heaven in the form of a dove.  A dove is a sign of peace.  Heaven opened, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove to show us that God is making peace with us through the baptism of Jesus His Son, and

God made peace with us at our own baptism.  For, on us too, the Spirit descended at our baptism. In us, the Holy Spirit began to dwell when we were baptized.

About this too we read from the Book of Genesis that, after the flood, two times, Noah released a dove from the ark to test if the angry waters of the flood had subsided.  The first time the dove returned because the flood was still covering the face of the earth and the dove had nowhere to perch.  The second time Noah released the dove, the dove returned with a freshly-picked olive leaf in its beak.  That, for Noah was sign that the angry flood had receded from the earth. The dove, the bird of peace, bore on its beak the olive leaf, the leaf of peace.

Just as the dove in the story of Noah signified the end of the raging flood, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove to show us that the flood of anger caused by our sin has receded.  The Holy Spirit descending on Jesus in the form of a dove is sign that God used the baptism of Jesus to show that he was making peace with us human beings in his Son Jesus Christ.

“A voice spoke from heaven.” 

The sin of Adam imposed silence.  Because of the sin of Adam, God and man were no longer on speaking terms.  Sin imposed silence. Our sin imposed silence. But in Jesus, God broke the silence that sin imposed.  God broke the silence with the voice that came from heaven after Jesus was baptized.  Before Jesus came, God sent prophets.  Now, in the coming of Jesus, God is speaking to us personally.  That is the meaning of the voice that came from heaven. 

“You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.”

This is what the voice from heaven is saying. The voice from heaven revealed the identity of Jesus as the beloved Son of God.  He is not just a prophet.  He is the Son of God himself.  He is the Son of God who is God.  He did not become the Son of God at baptism.  He has always been the Son.  Now, at his baptism, God is revealing to us what Jesus has always been:  he is the beloved Son of God.  And, because he is the beloved Son of God, he is not just a prophet.  What the Son says is what the Father says.  That is why we must listen to him.

Jesus the Son of God has been revealed to us in his baptism.  He is the Son who has come so that we too may become God’s sons and daughters.  The First Letter of John reminds us of this by saying: “See what love the Father has for us by letting us be called God’s children.  And that is what we are.”  That is what we become at baptism.  For, at our own baptism, the Father declared that we are his sons and daughters.  Our baptism brings us into the body of Christ the beloved Son of God.  And, having become part of the body of Christ through baptism, we too are declared to be God’s children by adoption. 

The Letter to the Galatians brought this to our attention a few days ago when it said in the Second Reading on the first day of the year: “When the appointed time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born a subject of the Law, to redeem the subjects of the Law, so that we could receive adoption as sons.”

That passage continues: “As you are sons, God has sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son crying, ‘Abba, Father’; and so you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir, by God’s own act.”

This was what happened to us when we were baptized.  We were freed from the bondage of sin.  We became freed sons and daughters of God so that we can enter into a new relationship with God.  With this new relationship, our way of life must be different.  Our life is no longer to be ruled by sin.  Our new relationship with God means we must relate with all human beings in a new way.  In all who are baptized, the old way of life must give way to a new way of life.  The way of self-centredness, the way of greed, the way of hatred, of working against the good of others, the way of might is right, the way of injustice—all these must end so that we may enter into heaven opened for us at baptism.  For we cannot enter heaven opened for us if we do not work for a just earth.

Whenever we offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass, we remember another baptism of Jesus.  Jesus the Son of God was baptized at the beginning of his earthly ministry.  And at the end, he will be baptized again, this time in the waters of suffering and death.  At Mass, we remember the baptism of the Son of God in his suffering and death. 

At Mass, we feast on the body of the Son broken in his suffering, broken on the cross to remind us that we must not break others.  We feast on the blood of the Son of God to remind us that we must not shed blood.  We must shun violence in thought, word, action and omission. 

At Mass, we offer God our earthly gifts of bread and wine, and he returns them to us as heavenly gifts of the body and blood of his Son.  We feast on the body and blood of the Son because we have become sons and daughters of God in the Son who was baptized into his suffering and death so that we who are baptized might live anew unto eternity.

Father Anthony Akinwale, OP