NewCreation

Homily for the Baptism of the Lord, Year A

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the feast of the Baptism of our Lord. This is a feast with which, as each year goes by, I become more and more aware of how important it is, and how little I had understood earlier about why this is remembered so often. One of the reasons is because so much depends on understanding the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus. There was an old way of talking about all these passages as though, well, you know, Jesus came along and John the Baptist's disciples were probably in some sort of rivalry with his disciples afterwards. So the Gospel writers had to come up with some complicated way to settle the rivalry in the text. And that seems to me to be a complete misreading of what's going on here. It presupposes that the Gospel writers themselves are riven by community jealousies, rather than understanding something entirely different that is going on here. That there is a real distinction between John and Jesus. The real distinction does credit to them both, but it's not to be underestimated. So in today's Gospel, Jesus comes from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. So he's coming deliberately. Remember that in a previous Gospel, which we actually had during Advent, we had John preaching about the one who was to come. He said: "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. I'm not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand," etc. In other words, John used the word "the powerful one," which is referring to God, but he saw it in a comparative way. He saw someone who was going to be tougher than he, more powerful than he, who was going to bring vengeance in some way upon the people. He saw the fulfillment of the prophets in that way. And later in the Gospel, which we also had in Advent this year following Saint Matthew's text, we have the time when John the Baptist's disciples go to see Jesus and say: "Are you the one who is to come, or wait we for another?" And Jesus answers, and then talks about John the Baptist, saying he's the greatest of all the prophets, and yet the very least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And then gives the very famous line about violence: "From John's days until now, all the kingdom of heaven is taken by violence." Now I think that here in the passage of the Baptism we see something about the very key point that's being brought out — about exactly what's going on here, how Jesus both is the stronger one and yet is not really in comparison with John the Baptist. So here we have Jesus coming to the Jordan to be baptized by him, coming to take advantage of the whole prophetic setup which John had, if you like, put together. Remember, John representing all the prophets — Elijah, Moses, Joshua — every single one of these prophetic memories described by his clothing and the place, the Jordan, to be baptized by him. So Jesus is coming to fulfill all that. Now John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" In other words, John recognizes a superiority to Jesus. But that misses the point. It's not a question of superiority. It's something entirely different. It's not that Jesus is a continuation of greater and greater figures. Jesus is something else, and that is very important. But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now." In other words, he's not expecting John to understand the distinction. He's just saying the time will come when you will understand this, or at least your disciples will. "For it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." It behoves us, it is befitting for us — one of the key terms in theology, where so many people talk about the necessity of this or that, necessity always being a word with a tightness about it that doesn't understand grace. But the proper, the befitting, meaning: this is how the Creator does things, in this way to fulfill all righteousness. Now, all righteousness means the whole of the prophets and the law. Remember, in Matthew it's the prophets and the law rather than the law and the prophets. Matthew understands that the law itself is prophetic. It's pointing towards a prophetic fulfillment, which is why Jesus is the prophetic fulfillment. And so here, all righteousness — that of the law and that of the prophets — and the fulfilling of all righteousness is going to include Jesus occupying the space, the place, of death. Why? Because only thus can the Holy Spirit be given. Remember that in the Torah, the whole point of the holy place in the Temple is that it is kept from death. Nothing to do with death can ever be in it. God is, as it were, allergic to death. Quite rightly: God is the ever-living one, the almighty one. But the notion of God's deathlessness is seen as something that needs protecting against by us. It's in rivalry with our lives. But Jesus has come here so as to occupy the place of death, as the Letter to the Hebrews understands very, very clearly — which is what's going to enable the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life, to be given to us, so that we can begin to live as if death were not. And that is how, thanks to Jesus fulfilling the law by going through even what the law prescribes — the death — he is going to be able to fulfill all righteousness. So John, presumably not entirely understanding what Jesus is talking about, but understanding that there is a way in which what he's been doing — prophesying what is to come — and what Jesus is going to do, which is to actually perform the definitive, final sacrifice whereby God as Son… comes in and offers himself as sacrifice to us, occupying the space of death, so that we may be set free from it forever. That fulfillment — it's very unlikely that John understood at the time. It's only after a long, long time that we begin to understand it. But John consents. So at this stage John baptizes Jesus. "And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water" — and the word "coming up" is the standard word referring to ordination of priests at the time. And the understanding is that once you had been baptized or washed as a priest, you had been through death, so now you were able to stand in the holy place. And the holy place was understood to be the place of abundant life, God's effervescent life. So you would be able to share in the holy space with the angels and saints. The ordination of priests was different from washings for forgiveness of sins or washings for various forms of cleanliness. But here the coming up is the coming up of the great high priest. "Suddenly the heavens were opened to him" — meaning exactly that. As he was ordained, he was already automatically in the holy place; the holy place was opened to him. In other words, it had started to come about on earth. That which had been before the foundation of the world was now being made available on earth. "And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him." So in the New Testament we move gradually backwards to the beginning of creation — not only all the prophetic uses of water, but now back to Noah, who, when the whole world was being destroyed by God's wrath in Genesis, sent out the bird. The first time it came back; the second time it didn't come back, because it had settled. So here the Spirit of God is settling on him like a bird. But even more than that — the Spirit of God, and here he doesn't say "the Holy Spirit" — the Spirit of God like a dove was the spirit that hovered over the waters at the beginning of Genesis. Remember that this is the fluttering of a bird. This is the bird, the spirit that hovered over the waters before creation, which is alighting on him. In other words, at last the Creator has come amongst us as human, and is going to fulfill creation in going to his death as great high priest, so as to open up for us the possibility of entering into the fullness of creation. All of that is foreseen here. And the voice from heaven says, "This is my Son, the Beloved." This is a quote from a Psalm, of course, except that the psalmist says, "Thou art my Son; this day I have begotten thee." I think that's Psalm 118. I may have got that wrong. But this — which is a reference to the same Psalm — it's a Psalm about Melchizedek, it's the Psalm about the great high priest coming in — but here it says, "This is my Son." In other words, this was done for other people to hear. Jesus is doing something deliberately, just to make clear the sense of what he's going to do. "This is my Son, the Beloved" — and probably the word "beloved," which includes beautiful translations like "on whom my favor rests," "in whom I am well pleased" — but it's also a reference to Abraham's way of referring to Isaac, or God's way of referring to Isaac as Abraham's beloved son, because the same word which is translated as "only begotten" in Hebrew is often translated in Hebrew as "beloved." So here is God's promise that God will fulfill, God will provide the sacrifice. God is not going to sacrifice — that's something we do. But God is going to provide, so as to undo our sacrificial world from within by undoing death. "With whom I am well pleased." In other words, this is part of my being not only looking at things and seeing that it's good, but being well pleased. This is the fullness of humanity coming into being, to open up creation and the kingdom of heaven for us. So we get this wonderful, rich scene in St. Matthew's Gospel of the Creator coming in as human to occupy death and open up creation — something that John the Baptist had understood was more powerful than he, but not in a comparative sense. Something way beyond what he could have imagined, and something entirely without vengeance or violence, which is going to be for so many people the great stumbling block. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.