Last week we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord as told in Matthew’s Gospel (3:13-17). Matthew recounted how, as Jesus came up from being immersed in the baptismal water of the River Jordan, a heavenly voice announced, This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Today’s Gospel is more reflection on that same event, but from the Gospel of John (1:29-34). The passage we hear today fills out Matthew’s picture of the “beloved son.” This beloved son is also the Lamb of God, and one baptized by the Spirit and in whom the Spirit dwells. Our Gospel passage today ends: Now I [John the Evangelist] have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.
Taken together, these two accounts of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist present Jesus to us in trinitarian fullness, as beloved son of the Eternal Father in whom the Spirit dwells. The evangelist John’s Lamb of God is like the Passover lambs of the Hebrews, whose blood when smeared on their doors protected them, so that they could journey to freedom in the Exodus. The Lamb of God protects his followers from things that cause spiritual death and reveals to them a new way of life to follow, so that they can be free from sin and its effects. Vatican II linked our sacrament of baptism with our Christian vocation. Baptism, it taught, initiates us into Christ’s body, the Church. It calls us to holiness and equips us to share in the Church’s mission of saving ministry in the world. So baptism and having a mission are intrinsically connected. Next week we will see Jesus, now baptized, stepping out to begin his public ministry and call his first apostles.
Do you know the date of your baptism? Do you have a sense of a mission of your own, one that flows from your relationship with the Son of God and the People of God, the Church? A good question to ponder this week.
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia; U.S. Navy photo by Deris Jeannette
The post January 18, 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Mission: a Sunday Scriptures blog first appeared on Sisters of the Precious Blood.