A new Philly family with freshly-baptized son, Alain Rene

Baptism of Jesus, Jan 11, 2025   Old St. Joseph Church

In my duties at Saint Joseph’s University I rarely have the opportunity to baptize babies.   But the last time I celebrated here at Old Saint Joseph’s, Father Frank asked me to take care of the baptisms on that Sunday afternoon.   I happily did that and was able to pour the water on two babies and one toddler all surprised by the liquid running across their foreheads.    I also quite recently baptized the new-born son of a couple in the process of seeking asylum here in Philadelphia. We certainly welcomed him as a member of the Church and I am hoping that his citizenship in the United States will not be questioned.  

In my own family we have a long standing tradition with a baptismal gown that first was hand sewn by my grandmother and worn by my uncle at his baptism in 1907 and last worn by my grand-nephew Bergen who was baptized 116 years later.  Bergen was the 56^th family baby to be baptized wearing this gown.   

But the gospel read today, of course, engages us in the meaning of baptisms for all the baptized. The word is based on classical Greek and means to dip as in the act of dying a piece of cloth in a solution of colored liquid or even to sink as a boat submerging in water.   The full symbol of Christian baptism includes the dipping of the body into water.   And I actually did this once with the help of her godparents, dipping a baby girl into a tub of water.  She is now about 35 years old and the most delightful person.  But, of course, to baptize in the rite of the Church today it is adequate to pour water on the head or even to sprinkle the head.

In our gospel reading today we feature John the Baptist.   He is a contemporary of Jesus and even known as his cousin.   He preaches not in the towns of Galilee and Judea as Jesus will do but rather he preaches in the desert area along the River Jordan, well east of Jerusalem.  John pleads with the Jews and their leadership to recognize and repent of their hypocrisy.  Jesus as he considers the beginning of his own public ministry confers with John the Baptist and in fact submits himself to the ritual of baptism that John practices, a ritual that John offers as a sign of repentance.   John says, however, to Jesus that, you, Jesus don’t need to repent and have no need of a baptism if repentance.  But for his part John wants to submit himself to the baptism that Jesus can offer.   John tells his own followers that his own baptism with water is different from Jesus’ baptism with water.   And the difference is this:  with John’s baptism the baptized acknowledge their sins and God forgives them in preparation for the judgement of the final days.  But Jesus, when he and then his disciples baptize, transforms the very meaning of baptism.   That is, today’s gospel tells us that when Jesus himself received John’s baptism “he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending.”  In accord with this baptism,  all baptisms in Jesus name confer the Holy Spirit.  Such a baptism accomplishes more than the forgiveness of sins about which John speaks. 

Well, father, what more? you ask.  Two things both important.   First the Spirit welcomes those baptized into the community of Love that is the Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit. So yes, Christian baptism, first of all, draws us into the Christian community. And second the Spirit offers us also a set of gifts that assist us in our lives of Community. Let me speak about community and then about these gifts.

Community:  After his own baptism Jesus’s public life unfolds.  He performs his works of preaching and healing, he engages with leaders of synagogue and Temple, he calls his disciples, he heals the sick and even raises the dead.  Baptism unleashes in him a public and community presence.  So it is for all of us baptized.   Baptism initiates in us not only a personal relationship with God but forms us in a community with all the baptized especially, of course, family and godparents.    And forms us, too, with a public mission in imitation of Jesus.   Today even the quasi-legal aspect of baptism, the inscription of the names of the baptized in the church records is a public gesture.   Baptism gives us a place in the People of God with rights to other sacraments especially the right to receive holy communion with all the other baptized. ….and also responsibilities.   The responsibilities of the baptized often run counter to individualistic ways of life that downplay active membership in a Christian community. Of course, God can save those individuals who create their own private ways of worship and service but such an individualistic life is not a fulfillment of baptism.

And the gifts of the Spirit?  We Christians have come to know the Spirit of God as the one who confers and then nourishes within us the seven gifts of the Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord (that fear understood as awe in the presence of the divine).   These dark days of this winter are filled with news of war and death, of political disarray and anger.  At the beginning of this new year we beg the Spirit to enkindle the gifts of our baptism in our hearts: especially the wisdom to know God’s will for us, the fortitude to speak the truth, and the counsel to find ways of uniting with others in the healing works of justice and mercy.   Always, always with an awesome sense of God’s glory and love for all of us.

Finally quotes from a short sermon related to baptism: we can take baptism for granted and not consider it as both foundational for our faith and also enriching our lives every day.   When I want to remind myself of the power of baptism, I remember a short story written by Flannery O’Connor, a devoted Catholic, who used the eccentricities of Southern Bible Belt Christians to startle us sedate Catholics with some unusual imagery.

We skip over the full story which Flannery titles “The River”.  But I read the words about baptism spoken by a preacher in the story, a preacher with a reputation as a healer. He speaks at a revival down at a river’s edge somewhere in one of our southern states.  Imagine the scene: The preacher stands knee deep in the slow flowing river along the shore and preaches to the congregation gathered on the beach.

In a twangy voice: “Maybe I know why you come, maybe I don’t.   If you ain’t come for Jesus, you ain’t come for me.  If you come to be healed by a baptism of river water and to leave your pain in the river, You ain’t come for Jesus.  You can’t leave your pain in the river.  You might as well go home if that’s what you come for.   Listen, people!  There ain’t but one river and that’s the River of Life, made out of Jesus’s blood. That’s the River that you have to lay your pain in, in the River of Jesus’s Blood.  In the River of Faith, in the River of Life, in the River of Love!   If you believe, you can lay your pain in that River and get rid of it….”

So the preacher standing in the current of fresh river water reminds us that the power of the grace of baptism by water has its source in another current, a current of blood, a river of the blood of Jesus.  This Jesus, a person with a divine nature, takes on also a human nature, takes on bloody human flesh and suffers bodily torture.   And when we believe, His bloody River washes away the pains of sin and the pains of body and soul.  In this one River of Christ’s Love for us we share all our joys and all our pains.   In this one River Christ gathers all of his sons and daughters together in mercy. 

O’Connor’s story with this image of a river of Christ’s blood startles us.  But we acknowledge, too: Christ’s own river of blood is the source of all the graces of baptism in the fresh waters of creation, the source of our community, the source of the gifts of the Spirit.