Expectations

The Gospel of Luke for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord begins with the words “The people were filled with expectation” and the people wondered if John the Baptist might be the Christ. It is an important day for John. This is the penultimate event in his life in Scripture followed only by the event of his death. As he himself reminded his disciples in John 3, he knew his time was at an end. I must decrease, he told them; while Jesus must increase.

This past week my family gained a new member. My nephew’s wife gave birth to a new daughter. Most of my attention these past several weeks has been on that expectation. There will be a baptism soon. Very few of us can remember our own baptism mostly because most of us were baptized before we were able to know what it meant. Someone else spoke for us. Someone else – our parents – admitted us to this sacrament.

Jesus didn’t need anyone to baptize him and yet he chose to be baptized. As Pope Benedict has written, “It was the action of the One who wanted to make himself one of us in everything … to take upon his shoulders the burden of the sin of all humanity, by the desire to bring about true solidarity” with us and with our human condition.   

That should tell us that, like so much in our Church, the sacrament of baptism is about our relationship with others. This is one of the first things our parents ask for us – that we admit our newborns into a relationship with Jesus. And our relationship with Jesus admits us to a relationship with his Father. How many of us take that relationship seriously enough to recognize the presence of Jesus in our lives?

Secondly, baptism is about our relationship with the Church. That means it’s about our relationship with the community of believers. Baptism welcomes us into this or that parish community. But it also welcomes us into that larger Church that we can call the communion of saints that has been and that is going to be. What are our relationships like?

For those of us baptized as infants, so much depends on our parents. They must show us that they have a relationship with God. They don’t need to spell it out in words. They just need to show it. They must be living it.

So on this feast the people are filled with expectation. John has to point the way for them, however. They want to establish a relationship with John that means hope for their lives. And John tells them to look to Jesus. In Jesus you will find the things you expect – hope for your life, mercy, justice, and the kind of interior peace that comes from nowhere else. Once that relationship is established, how will we live? Justice and mercy are not always readily available. Giving them birth infers a certain readiness to relegate my own desires to second place, if not third or fourth or even last place. Justice and mercy are not the same as fairness and equality. Justice is not always equal and mercy is not always fair.

The baptism of Jesus was witnessed by a large crowd of people. Not only did they observe this event, they also heard the voice of God’s pleasure. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The prophet Isaiah spoke of a servant with whom God was well pleased. Jesus became that servant. It is not always easy to remember that Jesus lived his life as he did because he chose to do the will of his Father. Perhaps the most important thing to take from this feast is a greater appreciation of that relationship. It is a model for us. Is my relationship with God such that I strive at every moment in my life to do the will of God?

After this feast, the Church moves us into Ordinary Time and we witness Jesus in his public ministry healing and curing. What meaning does this have for us? Our baptism calls us to great expectations. Our baptism calls us to continue the healing work of Jesus where we are. Our baptism calls us to be merciful and to act justly both among ourselves and all those we encounter. Baptism points up the expectation for us as leaders in whatever community we find ourselves. We may not have realized the import of our own baptism when it occurred. It is time we realize that baptism has marked us for something new and special. To live as Jesus did. Jesus lived for nothing but doing the will of his Father. Nothing less is expected of us.