You Are My Beloved Son - Baptism of the Lord Year C

There are a variety of misunderstandings regarding the sacrament of baptism. One such misunderstanding is that baptism is the culmination of the spiritual life. “I am baptized, my sins are forgiven, and I am saved. There is no further obligation on my part,” people think. The readings for our feast today dispel this notion rather bluntly.

The first reading from Isaiah is not merely a description of the Suffering Servant or the future Messiah, but rather it is a call to discipleship. “I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.” Every single person is called by God to perform the works of justice in the world.

The Gospel reading confirms the message of the first reading. While we can clearly see the fulfillment of the Messianic expectation from Isaiah in Jesus, nevertheless the words of God the Father spoken to Jesus are words addressed to us at our baptism as well: “You are my beloved son. On you my favor rests.” We must remember that immediately after Jesus is baptized, the Spirit leads Jesus into the desert to be tempted by Satan, and then Jesus begins his public ministry. For Jesus, baptism was not the end of the road, but the beginning of his public ministry.

The same is true for Christians of every age. In our own time, the Second Vatican Council has reminded us of our baptismal obligations in no uncertain terms: “They are mistaken who, knowing that we have here no abiding city but seek the one which is to come, think that they may therefore shirk their earthly responsibilities. For they are forgetting that by the faith itself they are more obliged than ever to measure up to these duties, each according to his proper vocation. Nor, on the contrary, are they any less wide of the mark who think that religion consists in acts of worship alone and in the discharge of certain moral obligations, and who imagine they can plunge themselves into earthly affairs in such a way as to imply that these are altogether divorced from the religious life….The Christian who neglects his temporal duties, neglects his duties toward his neighbor and even God, jeopardizes his eternal salvation” (Gaudium et Spes #43).

The entire focus of the Christian life is to imitate Christ and to become Christ in all we say, do, and think. Our baptism, therefore, must imitate that of Christ’s. Jesus’ baptism led him to battle with the devil, to care for the poor and the sick, to lead people to reject sin and live for God and others, and to ultimately die for others. The Psalm today proclaims, “The Lord will bless his people with peace.” That promise can only become a reality if we conform our lives to Christ and live and die as Jesus lived and died, for it is only a heart in union with God and devoted to imitating Christ that can experience such peace.

The Church’s ritual of baptism highlights these obligations for the Christian. For most of us these words were spoken to us as infants, so let us conclude our meditation with some of the duties proclaimed to us in the baptism ritual: “This light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. This child of yours has been enlightened by Christ. He is to walk always as a child of the light. May he keep the flame of faith alive in his heart (#100). The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father (#101). Through baptism and confirmation, make him your faithful follower and a witness to your gospel (#84).”