Homily for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

January 10, 2021

A story is told about a young boy, Johnny, who cried all the way home after the baptism of his baby brother. When asked what was wrong, Johnny replied, “That priest said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, but I want to stay with you guys!”

The ritual of baptism predates Christianity, and can be found in many of the religions of the world, ancient and modern. Baptism, of course, makes use of water, and depending on which denomination or group you belong to, the process can be different. For example, when I was first ordained, I became friendly with a Baptist minister, who wanted to show me the new baptismal font they had recently installed, and when I got there, I found a rather large stainless steel pool, several feet deep. The reason was that his group of Baptists only baptized people as adults, and they did it by immersion into the pool of water—whereas we Catholics generally use a much smaller bowl-like structure, we pour the water over the head of the person being baptized, and we often baptize infants.

But we all use water, which has a powerful meaning and symbolism to it. We know that without water, we would soon die. Without water, we would not remain very clean or fresh-smelling. Water is very basic, and primal.

If we look at stories about water in the Bible, we can learn a lot about the deep meaning of baptism, and why it is used by so many religious groups. I want to look at two such passages. First, in the story of the beginnings of the Jewish people, we have the powerful drama of Moses parting the water of the Red Sea. You may recall that the Hebrews were fleeing Pharaoh’s army. After the Sea was parted, the Jewish people got through to the other side; Pharaoh’s army, however, were drowned in the water. A major point of the story is that, after passing through the water, the people were changed. Before, they were slaves. Now, they are free.

Second, the same can be said for the baptism that was administered by John the Baptist. As the people were going down into the water, they were drowning, dying to their past, giving up their sins, and coming up out of the water— different than they had been before.

Let me share another story. Hoping to find a few days’ work, a portrait painter visited a small town. One of his first clients was a person in shabby clothes, with a stubbly beard, and the smell of alcohol on his breath. After the artist had labored a little longer than usual, he lifted the painting and presented it to the man. “This isn’t me,” replied the astonished subject of the painting, as he looked at a smiling, well-dressed person. The artist had looked below the person’s exterior, saw his inner beauty and dignity, and captured it.

Our baptism is God’s gift, and the words spoken at Jesus’ baptism are a reminder of how God sees us: “You are my beloved son.” “You are my beloved daughter.” The two passages I shared with you are different in one major respect. John the Baptist focused on the individual; he was looking for evidence of individual, personal conversion on the part of the one being baptized. The passage about the Hebrew people at the Red Sea, by contrast, has a communal emphasis: it is the entire people that pass through the Sea together; they are given their freedom together; they make their way to the Promised Land together.

We now perform baptisms during the celebration of the Eucharist to emphasize this communal aspect of baptism. Baptism makes us part of a community, a family, a Church. It is baptism that forges the bonds between us and places us in service to one another. No one is expected to grow, or change, or become holy, or struggle, alone. We are God’s beloved children, meant to support and bring the best out of each other, to remind each other that underneath it all, underneath the dust and grime that can accumulate, we have a God-given dignity, which is what the portrait painter did. Our first reading today reminded us that God’s ways are not are ways. While we often see only the appearances, God is the artist who sees our hearts, knows who we are, and knows who we can yet become.

I also believe that the communal dimension of life celebrated in baptism is a reminder of a gift we have to offer our country during this difficult time. We seem to have lost the sense that we are one nation, one people—certainly with unique differences and various gifts, but with common dreams and ideals, values and beliefs, that knit us together and enable us to work for the common good. Our divisiveness certainly celebrates our individuality, freedoms and rights, but without a respect for each other and a sense of responsibility to each other we just might tear each other, and our nation, apart. We are better than that! We are God’s beloved, which makes us brothers and sisters quite incapable of surviving on our own. Just as God has given himself to us, God now asks us to give ourselves to each other. This is what our baptism asks of us.