All the gospels have some important turning points in them, some moments where the story begins an important new direction, when new things start to happen. And today, when we celebrate Jesus’s baptism is definitely one of those days, it is a day filled with a sense of something coming to life.
Like so many of those gospel turning points, it begins with a journey, and the place Jesus journeys to means something. Jesus made a trip of several days’ duration to the River Jordan, to the place where the people of Israel first got a glimpse of the promised land, that place where they believed all of God’s promises were going to become reality. And that is where John the Baptist has led people because he knew that the moment for God to keep his promises again has arrived, and this was where to go to make sure people understood that it was time for a rebirth of their expectations and their hope in what God was willing to do for them.
And Jesus too has come here, because he too knows that something is happening now, that he has to be there, that this for him is when something about him will be revealed. Baptism for Jesus is really the beginning of his mission, this is when it starts to become clear to the people around him, and maybe to him as well, who he is and what his life will mean. It’s also when he in a visible way receives the Spirit of God to live that life.
So that is why today is so important in the gospel story, it is the day when Jesus’s real identity and mission begin to be revealed. But today also is a story about us. What really happens when someone is baptized? If you start by looking up baptism in our catechism, there is language that, when you read it, you will probably think is wildly overstated. It says baptism is, quote, the basis of the whole Christian life, it says that through it we become members of Christ, it says baptism incorporates us into the Church and makes us sharers in its mission, it says that through baptism we enter into communion with Christ’s death, we are buried with him, and we rise with him. These are strong words for all of us who have been baptized, to think what power has been given to us, and to realize that for us too baptism is a turning point, or maybe it’s more accurate to say that it is, if we allow it to be.
The fact is, people who are baptized are part of something overwhelming. Baptism in the church is the great equalizer. Everyone baptized in the church is equal in dignity, different in the gifts that we have, but equal in God’s eyes, all of us equal when we come here for the eucharist.
Because of baptism, we are all citizens of this people of God, even if we don’t often feel that dignity. And through baptism we also become people with a mission, something that we are asked to do to be part of God’s project of rebuilding this world into the Kingdom of God. What that something is can be different at different points of our lives, but it is always something that means that we surrender ourselves to God’s project, it’s always something larger than ourselves.
We are not always sure we can bring ourselves to do what we feel called to, as Jesus himself was not always certain that he could finish what his baptism began. One of the great medieval theologians said that the gift of the Spirit at baptism can take away our sense of unworthiness and smallness, and restore our sense that we can really commit ourselves to what we’re called to. Right after his baptism Jesus begins this next phase of his life, he goes to the desert and faces temptations and makes decisions about how God’s values will be his values, and then he begins his life’s work dedicated to courage and love and suffering, to forgiving sin and teaching us to forgive, and being present with the poor and the forgotten.
Baptism begins that process for us too. We could think of this day as the day when the work of Christmas really begins, when we remember that God thinks we are capable of following in Christ’s steps in whatever way we come to realize. How do we get started? Maybe as Jesus did, we take a trip, to somewhere or someone in your life or your past who will remind you of what you really desire in life, or you can go away on a retreat where your surroundings are new and you can remember your real desires. Or maybe you already know what you wish you could do to follow Jesus’s words in some small way, and you just need someone to remind you that the Spirit can help you to do it.
And if you think God isn’t calling you to something, if you think you’re too much of a marginal or unsuccessful Catholic to do this, that you are too old or too young or too busy, I encourage you to go find your baptismal certificate, wherever it is, and take a look at it. Because that certificate says you’re wrong. The Spirit we received at baptism can change anyone, even us.