By Father Jean-Pierre Ruiz
I AM OLD ENOUGH to remember the CYO summer day camp at Cresthaven Country Club in northern Whitestone. Now gone for more than 25 years, the club’s large outdoor swimming pool provided welcome relief from summer’s heat.
The staff kept us safe by assigning colored swim caps according to our proficiency in the pool. White swim caps brought bragging rights to those allowed to use the deepest part of the pool – campers who passed the swimming test with flying colors. Next in the natatory aristocracy were the blue caps.
They had it all over the small fry at the shallow end of the pool – campers assigned to wear red caps so lifeguards could keep us out of trouble. That’s where I found myself, making the best of my lowly aquatic estate. Year after year, it was a red cap for me. It wasn’t until after my priestly ordination that I became a proficient swimmer. Too bad CYO doesn’t award honorary white swim caps!
Dip at the Deep End
My thoughts turn to swimming not because of the unseasonably warm weather we experienced at Christmas, but because in Luke’s Gospel this week we read about another adult who takes a dip at the deep end, so to speak. That’s Jesus, the feast of whose baptism by John we celebrate this Sunday.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all provide accounts of Jesus’ baptism. Called the “Synoptic Gospels” because of their remarkable similarities, they rely on many of the same oral and written sources for what they faithfully transmit as the words and deeds of Jesus. Yet each maintains its own perspective, shaped by the specific circumstances of the early Christian communities within which each of the Gospels took shape. Most biblical scholars agree that Mark’s was the earliest of the canonical Gospels, and that both Matthew and Luke depend on Mark for the basic outline of the Jesus story.
While both Matthew and Luke provide insights into the Nativity, in Mark’s Gospel Jesus makes His first appearance, not as an infant, but as an adult. In Mark 1:9-11 we read, “It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”
The narrator reports Jesus’ baptism in a straightforward way. What follows, though, is seen and heard only by Jesus Himself, with the narrator giving no indication that anyone other than Jesus saw the Spirit descend or heard the heavenly voice identify Jesus as “my beloved Son.”
Matthew’s version was shaped by an understanding of John’s activity as the administration of a baptism that signified acknowledgment of sin and repentance. Thus, it would have seemed strange for Jesus – the Son of God – to seek baptism. For this reason, Matthew reshaped Mark’s narrative, writing that “Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?’” (Matthew 3:13-14) with the Baptist putting into words the puzzlement Matthew’s community must have experienced in learning that the Son of God Himself sought baptism.
Putting Things in Perspective
Yet in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus put things in perspective, urging John the Baptist, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). In other words, “Just go along with the plan. Whose plan? God’s plan!”
In Matthew’s Gospel, the voice from heaven announces to one and all: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” This is the first time in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus’ identity is disclosed in such a public way.
Before this, only Joseph and Mary had any idea of how truly special Jesus was.
In Luke’s version there is nothing distinctive about Jesus’ baptism itself. It seems Jesus was just part of the crowd: “After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized” (Luke 3:21). Yet there is more: the evangelist tells us that Jesus was in prayer after being baptized. While He was at prayer, “heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:21-22).
More emphatically than the other evangelists, Luke highlights the importance of prayer in Jesus’ life, from this first mention of intimate communion with the Father to the anguished prayer at the Mount of Olives and His prayer from the cross asking the Father’s forgiveness for His tormentors. While at prayer after His baptism, Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Father confirms the bond of love with His Son. According to Luke, the heavenly voice is for Jesus’ ears alone, confirming Him in the mission He was about to begin, the mission that the prophet Isaiah speaks to so beautifully this week.
So Utterly Human
Simply and subtly, Luke’s Gospel teaches us that Jesus, the Son of God Himself, dove deeply into the ordinariness of our human condition, so utterly human that He took His place unnoticed among the crowds being baptized in the Jordan by John. Beloved by God and filled with the Holy Spirit, He now holds each of us in a gentle embrace. In this Year of Mercy, the words of Paul’s letter to Titus in the second reading are especially timely.
Baptized in Christ, we too emerge from the waters filled with the Spirit and strengthened for the mission that is ours, a mission that is nothing less than a sharing in the merciful work of Christ Himself. Dive in!
Readings for The Baptism of the Lord:
Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7 or Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11
Psalm 29: 1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10 or Psalm 104: 1B-2, 3-4, 24-25, 27-28, 29-30
Acts 10: 34-38 or Titus 2: 11-14; 3: 4-7
Luke 3: 15-16, 21-22
Father Jean-Pierre Ruiz, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is a professor of theology at St. John’s University