BAPTISM OF THE LORD

God Continues To Do Great Things

"After all the people had been baptized and Jesus had also been baptized and was praying …" (Lk 31:21a). What a laconic account of an extraordinary event in the story of Jesus! Yet, an event is important enough for us to remember with its Sunday celebration.   can only imagine the surprise – and reluctance – that John must have felt in baptizing this sinless man whom he had called (as we know from other gospel accounts) "the Lamb of God." And yet Jesus, in obedience to God's will, was baptized in the flowing and muddy waters of the Jordan River (it's been compared to a murky drainage ditch), the water in which sinners had been baptized.  e has identified with us and has taken on our unwashed humanity to cross the Jordan River in an exodus from sin into new life. 

Then "Heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove" (Lk 31:21b).  Heaven was opened.  Now, there is access between heaven and earth.  Joined with Jesus, we have been washed, buried with Him, and raised to new life with the hope of heaven.  Our feet are set on the way of righteousness and toward forming a right relationship with God.  e also see in today's gospel a revelation of the Trinity: God the Father's pleasure with the Son ("with you, I am well pleased") and the confirmation of the Holy Spirit.  That grace and love! 

This opens for us a deeper understanding of the meaning of the word comfort.  Comfort, comfort my people," says Isaiah just a few sentences before today's first reading.  Such comfort is not like an arm around a shoulder, a hug, or a pat on the back, but a far deeper, even divine, comfort.  Isaiah and Paul remind us that God has and will continue to do great things.  This is my comfort (from the Latin com, meaning with, and fortis, strength)—strength to a deeper hope of the future and a consolation in my present.  Isaiah and Paul remind us that God has and will continue to do great things.  o I fall to my knees in awe and worship and raise my arms and voice in praise and thanksgiving, and say with the psalmist: "O Lord my God, you are great indeed ... How manifold are your works, O Lord!" (Ps 104: 1, 24).

–Monica Thursam 

Send Us Forth are reflections written by St. Matthew parishioners and friends.