The Baptism of Jesus

The Baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:4-11)

“You are my Son, The Beloved.”

If you are born once you will die twice. If you are born twice you will only die once.

The baptism of John, the last of the prophets, was a baptism of repentance. John himself recognizes that he is a transitional figure in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. He can only issue the prophetic call to repent and prepare. Jesus is the one, the only one, who can accomplish the Plan of Salvation.

John’s baptism is symbolic of the desire to seek a new life. Baptism in Jesus is the sacramental reality of the new life, and the new way of living God offers us.

John’s baptism calls for a choice to take an action. The choice is to repent- to recognize that I have sinned and will continue to sin.  The choice is to enter the waters of baptism as a sign and symbol of my need to die to sin.

John’s baptism can only point the way. Jesus accepts the baptism of John to fulfill all righteousness. Jesus had no need to repent of sin. Jesus never sinned. He never sinned because he never separated from God,

Moses and the prophets and the apostles uniquely identify the root cause of sin as separation from God. Sin is a consequence, and not even the immediate consequence, of the choice our species made to separate from God.

Repentance of actual sin- things done that we should not do as well as things left undone that we should do- is good. Repentance of actual sin alone has little effect on our lives.  We need to get to the root cause of actual sin. We need to receive and embrace our Heavenly Father’s solution to the underlying problem.

The problem is Original Separation (Original Sin). That choice forms every human soul. Collectively and individually we are lost in Separation. The lost live with a terrible but ill defined sense of pain- existential pain. That pain distorts every aspect of our being- our mind, heart and will. Those distortions affect every aspect of our lives.

A lost soul exists in three primary distortions: pride, self-will and fear. The distortion of pride is the claim to deity in the categories of knowledge and power. It is the claim the serpent used to tempt Adam and Eve. It is the attitude that says: I am the master of my fate; the captain of my soul. The  Bible is very clear that this kind of pride keeps us separated from God, other people and from the image and likeness of God imprinted on our souls. The Bible is also clear that pride always decays into despair.

Self- will is the will to power that insists: I want what I want and I want it now, and indeed I deserve it now. Fear is the wolf pack in the forest that haunts our dreams and fills us with doubt, insecurity and dread. It is the unforeseen and unpredictable events in life that take us by surprise and leave us powerless.

The actual sins of omission or commission that we commit are consequences of these distortions. That is why no set of laws or rituals can solve the problem of sin. If, as the Bible teaches, the problem is separation, existential pain, and the distortions of mind, heart and will that produce actual sin, then the only solution is reunification. That solution is God’s solution. That solution is Jesus Christ.

John the Baptist preached repentance to prepare the Way for salvation in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Father’s declaration of reunification.

When God the Father audibly declares to Jesus: you are my Son, The Beloved, He is not only telling us about reunification- he is also showing us reunification. Jesus is reunification.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of salvation is organic. It is incarnational. And, it is sacramental. As God unites his divinity with our humanity in Jesus Christ so he sends the Holy Spirit to unite us to the Father, through the Son in the sacramental waters of baptism.

In that union, Jesus overcomes the power of separation and sends the Holy Spirit into our souls to begin to heal the distortions of mind, heart and will that lead to actual sin.

The call to salvation is the apostolic call to receive the Father’s gift of reunification in the Son and then to live by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. As we heed that call and receive that gift we are re-born in Christ, we are born again to eternal life. We have a new life and enter into a new way of living in Christ and with Christ.

At his own baptism, Jesus enters the waters of an old model of outward repentance to transform that model into the new model of an inner reunification and transformation. At that moment of transition, God the Father declares to Jesus, to John the Baptist, to the crowds and to us just who Jesus is and just what he accomplishes: Jesus is the co-eternal Son of the Father. Jesus is The co-eternal Beloved on the one God who is infinite and eternal love. That love is eternal life now and forever. Amen.