- Isaiah speaks more about the "servant of God"
- Peter talks about the Gentiles receiving baptism
- The baptism of the Lord
Homily: 526 words
Estimated Time: 4 minutes
Today is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. So there are two themes running through the readings. The first theme is Jesus being the prophesied “servant of God” seen toward the end of Isaiah. That itself is a matter of some controversy. If were talk to critics of Christianity, particularly those from a Jewish background, they’d insist we’re reading Isaiah all wrong. There servant, they’d say, is not meant to point to a discreet individual, but to the nation of Israel as a whole.
The answer here is complicated. If you look at Isaiah 41 and 43, you’ll see the servant is explicitly identified as Israel. So it would seem such critics are correct. And yet, by the time you get to Isaiah 49 through 53, the servant is most certainly a single person acts on behalf of Israel. None of this should be very surprising. Jesus has always been always seen as a one-man recapitulation of the life of Israel – even by the Gospel writers themselves. For instance, Hosea 11:1 says “out of Egypt I called my son”. The original passage is clearly about Israel. Matthew’s Gospel attributes it to Jesus.
So there is no conflict between a passage referring to Israel corporately but still being a prophecy of Jesus specifically. And it is poetic that Isaiah begins with the image of corporate Israel, but the figure of the singular messiah slowly emerges as the text goes on.
That leads us to the actual appearance to that servant in history. Jesus makes his public debut – so to speak – when He submits to baptism by John the Baptist. The Catechism calls this the beginning of His public life [CCC 535]. Now we should say straight away that John’s Baptism was not Christian baptism. Christian baptism is done in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. It conveys forgiveness, grace, and adoption into God’s family. John’s baptism was a preparation for Christian baptism through an act of public repentance.
Which invites the question which John asked… why on earth does Jesus undergo a baptism of repentance? Jesus’ cryptic answer of “it is to fulfill all righteousness” isn’t really much of a help. But the Catechism is again helpful here. It describes this act as a gesture of self-emptying [CCC 1224] and an acceptance of His mission as God’s suffering servant. He allows Himself to be numbered among sinners [CCC536].
Let’s remember the prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus would be Emmanuel or “God with us”. While of course that phrase indicates something about the incarnation, it also tells us about Jesus’ mission. Jesus came to be among us because God loves humanity. In the words of Hebrews 4, He sympathizes with our weaknesses. And so when the son of God comes – in the words of our first reading – He comes humbly to lead people out of sin. To unite the nations in the truth of the one God.
That’s the meaning of the Baptism of our Lord. The servant of God spoken of by Isaiah comes among us sinners, declares His solidarity with us, and takes on His mission to redeem us.
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