The Baptism of the Lord
Jan 9, 2005
Matt. 3:13-17

Matthew's passage on the Lord's baptism spells out the Baptist’s reluctance to accept as his disciple one whom he recognizes in Jesus to be "someone greater."

The statement of the Baptist seems to presuppose that administering baptism assigns a place in the eyes of God: the one who baptizes has some priority or superiority in relation to the one who receives baptism. Jesus' reply, the Greek verb aphes, may be translated formally as "allow" or casually as "relax." Or possibly, it means "step back or withdraw your objection.” As if to say: our relationship is not under our personal control, for we need "to bring to fulfillment all justice." The emphasis is on "fulfillment." The word "justice" means God's way of accomplishing salvation. John and Jesus are tied together in the same salvation plan. Their "we" in the sentence is the fellowship that connects them in fulfilling the divine plan.

This is, therefore, a major opportunity for John to be initiated into Jesus' mystery: Jesus is called to be a messiah of humiliation, taking upon himself other people's sins and making a descent into the water -- into misery, compassion, suffering, death, hell itself -- on behalf of others. In his ministry he will take upon himself our illnesses, in his confrontations, he will suffer from our disbelief, and in his personal tragedy, he will be the object of betrayal, abandonment, and scorn. In John's gospel the encounter between Jesus and John produces the briefest statement about this victimization of Jesus: "Behold the Lamb of God."

Matthew's gospel begins, therefore, with the humiliation of the Son, and Jesus is exalted in response to his voluntary descent into the scene of creation. Emerging from water he inserts himself into the created order of human beings -- sinful human beings in need of a new creation. In response the Father declares the exaltation of sonship, and the descent of the Holy Spirit sanctifies "the waters," turns them into instruments of salvation for all baptisms by which we associate with the voluntary humiliation of the Son in order to share his glorified sonship. As if in a nutshell, the drama of our redemption is present in this scene of baptism. We see here, at the threshold of Jesus' redemptive saga, that the "doctrine of the Holy Trinity" is not an afterthought concocted for a ritual but a brief formula of Jesus’ "descent and ascent" providing forgiveness and sanctification for the condition of the human being.

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