Page Download(s)
file size: 293KB
The Baptism of the Lord
11 January 2009
Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!
Dear Friends in Christ,
I was born again by water and the Holy Spirit on 17 January 1982, and each year I keep the anniversary of my Baptism as a day of thanksgiving, self-examination, repentance, and resolution to turn again and again to the Lord Jesus for the constant renewal of the gifts of grace poured into me that day at the baptismal font. For each and every Christian, the event of being born again in Baptism is the foundation of the new life of grace, and whether we were aware of it or not, the day of our baptism must be numbered among the most significant and life-changing moments in our lives.
Today the Church recalls in the sacred liturgy the Baptism of the Lord Jesus in the River Jordan by his kinsman and herald, John the Baptist. Jesus receives Baptism not for the forgiveness of sins, but to make holy the waters of Baptism and to transform a religious ritual washing into the first Sacrament of the new and everlasting Covenant. The Baptism of Jesus is also, on His part, the acceptance and beginning of His mission as the Father’s suffering Servant. Jesus allows Himself to be numbered among sinners, and He is manifested to Israel as the Son of God. He is anointed with the Holy Spirit and is thus constituted in His sacred humanity the Anointed One of God, the Messiah, the Christ. By accepting Baptism from John, Jesus is also accepting and anticipating His salvific suffering and death. For this reason, through Baptism each Christian is sacramentally united to the death of Jesus so that we can walk in newness of life and be freed from slavery to sin and death (cf. Romans 6:1-14). In Baptism, we “put on Christ”, we are clothed with Christ and are therefore made children of God by adoption, members of Christ by grace, and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven.
On this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, I encourage every member of our parish family to find out when and where you were baptized, by whom you were baptized, and by whom you were sponsored in Baptism. Resolve to keep the anniversary of your Baptism as a day of special celebration; evaluate your relationship with the Lord Jesus in the light of the promises of Baptism, and surrender to Christ’s grace anything in your life which is not in keeping with His Law of Love. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus put it in the 4th century: “Let us be buried with Christ by Baptism to rise with Him; let us go down with Him to be raised with Him; and let us rise with Him to be glorified with Him.”
Father Newman