baptism

SUNDAY 12 JANUARY 2025: THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD.

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The Baptism of Jesus, Francesco Albani c.1624, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.

…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 3:22.

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And so, at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, there was a full revelation of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Certainly no-one there at the time would have known that, but it certainly set the scene for all that was to follow. Even the very human Jesus would have perhaps been unaware of the reality of this spectacular revelation of such a profoundly Christian, even baffling, foundational truth. Mark’s gospel even begins with this vitally important scene. Jesus himself had to spend the next 40 days in the wilderness to try and come to terms with what had happened to him. It marked the beginning of his ministry, the moment when he was given his identity as he was proclaimed the Son of God by the voice from heaven. Then because God’s Holy Spirit descended on him, anointing him, he became the Messiah, which is a Hebrew word, translated Christos in Greek, both meaning Anointed in English. This was because God’s Holy Spirit had descended upon him and it revealed his vocation, his job, as it were, in this life. And note that all four gospels state God’s Holy Spirit descended on him “like a dove”. It is quite rare for all four gospels to state the exact same event, but here it does. In him all the prophecies of the ages were to be fulfilled as he was the Messiah, and what he said and did were to be the actions of God’s Son. Each of us Christians underwent the exact same experience at our baptisms, when we became children of God, our divine identity and Christ to the world, our divine vocation. We have been adopted by God, and in each of our circumstances, whoever and whatever we may be, we are to behave and give witness to our vocation as Christ to the world because we are children of God!

Now I could not resist doing a little research into the choice of God’s Holy Spirit to appear as of a dove. At the present time, the dove is highly symbolic of peace. Going back into Scripture, remember that it was a dove through which Noah had the first sign that the flood waters of the world had receded. Doves were often sacrificed in the Temple as they were considered pure. Mary and Joseph offered Passover doves to the Lord when they traveled to Jerusalem with the young Jesus. The only sacrifices permitted in the Temple in Jerusalem were oxen, sheep, goats, turtledoves and pigeons. The symbolism of the spotless dove, however, has continued on down to the present. I found that in Hebrew the word for dove, יוֹנָה pronounced yownah, is feminine in gender. That therefore aligns with the words spirit and wisdom in Hebrew, also feminine. And one final thing. The Holy Spirit also appeared at Pentecost, this time in the form of flames of fire, signifying the birth of the church. The Hebrew word for fire, אֵשׂ pronounced aysh, is also (guess what) feminine in gender. So Spirit, Wisdom, Dove and Fire are all of them feminine in gender in the language of Jesus. From every angle, therefore, we who speak English, in which language gender means a great deal especially today, all the words associated with God’s Holy Spirit are feminine in Jesus’ own language! I leave you to draw your own conclusion.

Now about baptism. It would be quite understandable that we Christians would assume that the practice began with John the Baptist. Wrong! The idea of ritual cleansing goes way back before John. The Old Testament Book of Leviticus states that priests had to bathe in water before dressing for their ceremonies. Aaron also had to do this before entering the Tent of Meeting with God. Hence we Christians are cleansed from all sin when baptized. Some think that the first Christian emperor Constantine deliberately waited until his deathbed to be baptized for that very reason! In fact the very earliest baptisms, which were always adult, took place in a pool with three steps on one side and another three on the other, deep enough for the baptized to be under water completely. The symbolism here was that you died to your old life of sin on stepping down and then rose to the new life with God as you stepped up.  

The 4th century Baptistry of St. John, Poitiers, France, thought to be the oldest Christian building in the country.

 Now you might wonder why Jesus, of all people, would submit to baptism, something which occurred to John himself as reported in Matthew’s version of this event. Jesus simply said “Let it be so now; it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness in this way.” Perhaps Jesus was simply demonstrating the importance of the sacrament: to be a Christian you have to be baptized, you must renounce your old life and enter upon the new. 

So just as this event inaugurated Jesus’ mission, our baptism began our new life as a Christian, abhorring what is contrary to Jesus’ teaching and example and striving for that which would pleasing to the Lord of all. So in a sense each of us must be John the Baptist calling all, by our example, to be disciples of the Lord. John was known to be a man of prayer and holiness. So should we be. He presented himself as a person of integrity, so must we. He recognized his lowliness when meeting the Lord. So should we. He was fearless when speaking the truth. So must we be. And so on. All that is not easy, but it is what the true Christian is called to. But we are not alone in doing all that. We have Jesus alongside us, and hopefully good friends as supports, as we are for them. Our Christian community has lasted for 2000 years, and will continue to do so until the end of time. It is right and just!

The Baptism of Christ, The Neonian Baptistry c.510, Ravenna, Italy. 

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SUNDAY 17 MARCH 2024: THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT.

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Society of African Missions, 5th Sunday of Lent 2021 – Year B

[Jesus said] “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.      John 12:23-24.

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[Today, the traditional date for St. Patrick’s Day, is superseded by the Fifth Sunday of Lent;  however, Éirinn go Brách for the day when everyone is Irish!]

A strange gospel today. A group of “Greeks”, which, in this context, might mean Jews (or Jewish sympathizers) who are probably not from the Holy Land, ask to see Jesus, and are not heard of again! One wonders if their request was even honored. But Jesus’ response constitutes the essence of today’s gospel. First the sitz im leben, as the theologians say – what is the context of the passage? These are the clues. These people are Greeks, possibly non-Jews, that is to say, Gentiles. They may have come from the Decapolis, a Greek term describing ten towns or cities in and around the Holy Land principally populated by Greek-speaking people (and remember, Greek was the international language of the Roman Empire at that time; it became Latin years later; it is the reason the New Testament is written entirely in the Greek of that time).

The Greeks approached Philip and Andrew, significant because they have Greek, non-Jewish names. It probably meant all of these people spoke Greek as their first tongue, and might have looked on Hebrew as, perhaps, a tricky foreign language. But what all that meant was that Jesus’ fame had been spreading beyond the traditional Holy Land of the Jews. That is possibly the explanation of Jesus’ outburst: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified! The more his fame spread, the greater the hostility of the Jewish leaders towards him. Put that together with his greatest of all miracles, the raising of Lazarus at about the same time, plus the fact that all this was near the feast of Passover, things seem to be drawing to a climax. This might also explain Jesus saying, “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” He knew that the greatest test of his faith in God and himself was near.

Look at the first reading today. It is as if it had been written by Jeremiah with Jesus in mind! “All, from least to greatest, shall know me” he says of God. That can also be applied to the Lord. Then there’s the second reading, which says of Jesus, “he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect.” This states clearly that he stood by the identity he was given at his baptism, and at the transfiguration, that he was the Son of God, and he stood true to his vocation, as the Anointed, the Christ, the Messiah of God after the Holy Spirit had descended on him also at his baptism. The refusal to deny either of those claims led directly to his condemnation for blasphemy and his crucifixion. His agonized realization of all this is seen in today’s gospel passage, and who among us would not have reacted in any other way? The mystery is, of course, why on earth did those Jewish leaders not see clearly the fulfillment of all the messianic prophecies in this one man? It has to have been their own conviction, based on careful pruning of the Scriptures to suit their own understanding, that the Messiah had to be a military figure conquering the Romans and re-establishing the kingdom of David. And Jesus was clearly not that man!

And what of us today? Do we cry out in agonized tone that being Christ to the world has led to our rejection and downfall? Or, possibly more likely, do we cry out that we have not lived up to the same vocation and identity given us at baptism to be and act as Christ to the world? Well that is what Lent is all about, to see into ourselves, and if necessary, resolve to change things so that we can truly stand next to the Lord, who is the embodiment of forgiveness, in faith and hope, and actually be Christ to the world. And for each of us, that might mean a very great challenge, to stand up and be counted as a true Christian, alongside Jesus himself. May the Lord give us the courage and conviction so to do.

Mosaic in the Church of Santa Prudenziana, Christ Teacher and Lawgiver 3rd-4th century, Rome, Italy.

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Reflections on next Sunday’s Mass Readings will be posted on Wednesday.

Please send your reactions to: RogerJohn@aol.com

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