Baptism of the Lord, Sunday – 9th January 2022 — Gospel: Matthew 3,13-17
Great Manifestation
The feast of the Baptism of the Lord brings to an end the Christmas season. The church celebrates four manifestations or epiphanies in Jesus. Today is the third of them. The first was Jesus’ manifestation at His birth to the shepherds in the regions of Bethlehem. The second was Jesus being manifested to the magi (wise ones). The fourth epiphany was Jesus’ beginning His public life with the miracle at the wedding feast at Cana. Today Jesus is revealed to the world as He is baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. Today is the transition from Jesus’s private life in Nazareth to His public ministry.
Matthew describes the Baptism of the Lord in a unique way. He is careful not to have John the Baptist preach a baptism for the “forgiveness of sins” and therefore omits this. He alone adds a dialogue between Jesus and John to stress both Jesus’ superiority and that John baptized Jesus only after Jesus allowed him to do so and in order “to fulfill all righteousness.”
The three events that occurred at the baptism of Jesus are mentioned by all the three synoptic gospels but with some differences. In Matthew “the heavens were opened”, which could be an indication that communication between God and humans is being reestablished in a new way. Others see it as referring to the prayer of Isaiah for God to “render the heavens and come down” (Is 64,1). The splitting of the heavens enables the Spirit of God to come down and descend on Jesus like a dove. This could mean either an approval of the event by God through his Spirit or even that in Jesus the whole people of God as represented by the Spirit are being anointed. The third event is the climax and gives the meaning to the other two and to the baptism itself. In Matthew, the voice speaks in the third person and so reveals to the listeners that Jesus is both beloved Son and servant. This revelation brings out the paradox of the event. On the one hand Jesus is manifested as the beloved Son and king through the quotation of Ps 2,7 “this is my beloved son”, while on the other hand he is also manifested as servant and slave in the same event through the quotation from Is 42,1 “with whom I am well pleased.” As a matter of fact, it is through His being slave and servant, through His passion and death on the cross and through His coming up out of the waters of death that Jesus becomes king and beloved Son.
