I was reading a book by a favorite Catholic author, Frank Sheed, from the 1960's. Sheed mentioned in passing that he didn’t understand why the Rosary skipped from the Finding of the Lord at the Temple - when he was twelve - to the Agony in the Garden, the day before he died. Sheed felt it might be unfortunate to just skip our Lord’s whole adult life and public ministry. He even wondered, if another set of mysteries were added, what they might be called. Well, we’ve got his answer. Pope John Paul II established the Luminous Mysteries a few years back, and the first of them is the Baptism of the Lord.
Something all the mysteries of the rosary have in common: they contain deep truths and layers of meaning in a single simple picture. With the Baptism of Jesus, this couldn’t be more true.
To begin to understand what’s going on in this simple scene at the River Jordan, we have to go back to the very beginning. The Book of Genesis, chapter one, the first two verses of the Bible. “In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. And the Earth was formless and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light.”
Genesis describes Creation as the Spirit of God moving over the waters. And God spoke, and there was light. Take a mental snapshot here: Who is present? The Father speaks. The Spirit moves over the waters. And the Word of the Father is spoken. As John tells us in his Gospel, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So in our snapshot from Creation, we have the whole Trinity present.
We can trace the water symbolism all through the Bible. It’s just a few chapters later in Genesis that God decides to cleanse the earth and start anew, and he does it with a flood. The waters of the flood are death, but also new birth. In the Exodus, when Moses leads Israel out of Egypt, they pass from bondage to freedom how? Through the waters of the Red Sea. And these very same waters are death - to the pursuing Egyptian chariots - but new life for Israel. So when we come to the Baptism of Jesus, we are taking up a familiar theme. Like a motif to which God keeps returning. The waters stand for death to sin, and new life in grace.
Let’s zoom in on the scene of Christ’s Baptism. Who’s here? Obviously, we have Jesus, the Son, the Word made flesh. Who appears? The Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, doing what? Hovering over the face of the waters of Jordan. And then... the Father speaks.
See? You can’t miss it. We’re back in Genesis. Remember our snapshot of Creation: The Father speaking, the Eternal Word, the Spirit moving over the waters. God has recapitulated the scene because He’s up to nothing less than a New Creation!
Now I don’t know about you but I find that to be just mind-blowingly cool. It’s things like this that make it impossible for me to believe that the Bible was made up by human genius. But it has to be more than just a cool doctrine: it has to land in our lives and make a difference.
We have to find our place in the scene too. We’ve all descended into those waters of death and rebirth. Sometimes we overlook how Baptism is about death, but Romans 6:3 asks, “are you not aware that we who were Baptized into Christ were Baptized into His death?” The church’s Rite of Baptism talks about death to sin. It’s necessary, because we can’t have new life without the old passing away. As Paul continues in Romans, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
And that’s the simple heart of the Christian life, and all Christian morality. We are dead to sin. We have to make our lives fit that reality. All our sinful habits and temptations... we have to learn to say “I’m dead to all that.” Done with it.
One of the hardest things to accept in Christianity is the highness of our calling. Baptized into Jesus Christ, we are dead to sin and alive in Him. His life is in us if we live in grace. As Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “Now I live, not I, but Christ lives in me.” God made it clear at the Baptism of Jesus that he’s up to nothing less than a New Creation. It’s up to us to accept that new creation within ourselves. In every decision, every temptation. If we never lose sight of our Baptism, we won’t get everything right, but we won’t go far wrong.
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