Today with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord we come to the end of the Christmas season. We end Christmas as we began Advent with the figure of John the Baptist. At the beginning of Advent he was presented as the figure foretold in Isaiah come to “prepare the way for the Lord. Today we see the fulfilment of his mission in the Baptism of Jesus and the inauguration of Christ’s public ministry. The sacred liturgy cannot follow the various events in the life of Christ in chronological order since we celebrate them all within the space of a single year. What the Church does is place these events in relationship with each other so that the various mysteries that we celebrate compliment one other.
That’s why we have the accounts of the ministry of John the Baptist in Advent, then we celebrate Christmas, Epiphany and now the Baptism of Jesus. They are not in chronological order but in a sequence which illustrates their meaning and significance. What we are doing is not considering them chronologically but theologically. Christ’s Birth was celebrated two weeks ago and in between we have had two feasts which were directly complimentary to it: the Feast of Mary the Mother of God in which we clarified our understanding that this child was our Saviour, Son of God and Son of Mary; then in the Feast of the Epiphany we saw how he was not destined merely for the people of Israel but for the people of the entire world. In today’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord we see our Saviour begin his ministry with the blessing and affirmation of God himself: “You are my beloved Son, my favour rests on you.?
And at this apposite moment we are introduced to the Sacrament of Baptism, the door to the Church and the gateway to salvation. Christ didn’t need to be baptised, but by undergoing Baptism at the hands of John he transforms it into the great sacrament of salvation. Just like everything else he touches it is immediately transformed. He makes it not just a Baptism of repentance for sins but a Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and the entrance to the Life of the Spirit. Jesus receives Baptism from John as a sign that he is sorry for the sins of all mankind and an expression of his decision that he would save us through his death on the Cross.
This is a bold statement made right at the very beginning of his ministry and it indicates clearly the direction in which he is going. Of course, this was not evident to any one present except John the Baptist; it is something that only becomes clear to us in retrospect. But it is obvious that John the Baptist gets the message because, as is recorded in the Gospel of John, the following day he points out Jesus to his disciples and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.?
He knows who Jesus is and he knows what Jesus is to achieve; he might not be fully aware of the details or how it is going to be worked out, but he knows God has a plan for the salvation of the world and Jesus is going to be the one who is to fulfil the promises God has made down through the ages. We have, each of us, been baptised; our task now is to live out the implications of our Baptism. Being Baptised means being a Child of God, being baptised means living a new kind of life, being Baptised means that we are now Witnesses to Christ. Because most of us were baptised as children we have completely forgotten the experience of Baptism. However, we might have been present recently at the Baptism of a child and we were reminded us how the priest poured water on our heads in the name of the Trinity and how we were anointed with holy oil and consecrated to Christ’s service.
We know that Baptism is the sacrament of our initiation into the Church and that through it we became members of Christ’s body. It is a simple ritual but it has extraordinary implications. I mentioned that this feast falls at the very end of the Christmas season. But it is also regarded as the first Sunday of Ordinary Time. It acts like a sort of bridge between Christmas Time and Ordinary Time. As we have noted, and it is especially evident in the Gospel of Mark which we are studying this year, the Baptism of Christ marks the beginning of what we call his public ministry.
In Ordinary Time we go systematically through the Gospel and consider the important events of this ministry. We look at the various miracles in turn and we examine Christ’s teaching, especially as found in the Sermon on the Mount. We should take all this seriously; if we are to be Christ’s witnesses to the world of today then we need to know all about Christ what he did and what he taught. That means we need to study his life and there is no better way of doing this than by following the Gospel readings as presented to us by the Church through the Liturgical Year.
As we celebrate this feast today we are invited to remember and take ownership of our own Baptism. We will renew our faith using the question and answer format as was done at the time of our Baptism and I will sprinkle you with Holy Water in blessing as a further reminder of Baptism. As we do these things let us give thanks to God for the gift of faith and for all that we have received as members of his Church. Let us ask him to come into our lives afresh and fill us with his Holy Spirit. And let us resolve to live our lives in this New Year as his faithful disciples.
In January 1997 British yachtsman Tony Bullimore was sailing solo deep in the Southern Ocean. A gale was raging. The waves, reaching the height of a five story building, rushed on him with a sound like roaring thunder. As his yacht plummeted down the face of a wave it hit something submerged in the water and turned upside down.
Tony, who had been sheltering in the two metre by three metre cockpit found it had become his prison. As giant waves buffeted the boat, water poured in and out a broken window, knee high at one end, waist high at the other, the air temperature was down to 2 degrees Celsius, and it was pitch black – the sun couldn’t penetrate the upturned yacht.
Twelve times Bullimore left the cockpit in a vain attempt to release his liferaft. Meeting with no success he took refuge in his little cabin. Sitting inside the cold inky darkness Bullimore had few rations – some chocolate and a device for making fresh water from salty sea. His fingers became frostbitten and Bullimore thought that he was going to die. The odds of being rescued seemed impossibly small.
Four four long days Tony survived, until late Wednesday night when a RAFF plane located him and dropped an electronic probe next to his yacht. Bullimore could hear the faint pings, and with hope rising in his heart, started tapping on the hull to communicate to whoever was listening that he was alive. Early the next morning the HMAS Adelaide drew alongside, and some sailors were dispatched to bang on the hull. Tony heard the banging, took a deep breath, and swam out through the wreckage of his yacht to meet them.
How did he feel at that moment? Bullimore says “When I looked over at the Adelaide, I could only get the tremendous ecstasy that I was looking at life, I was actually looking at a picture of what life was about. It was heaven, absolute heaven. I really, really never thought I would reach that far. I was starting to look back over my life and was starting to think, `Well, I’ve had a good life, I’ve done most of the things I had wanted to do’ I think if I was picking words to describe it, it would be a miracle. An absolute miracle.”
Reflecting on the experience later Bullimore told reporters “…Now that I’m getting a bit old there is one thing, and I don’t mind telling the world, I’ve become more human. In these last six days I’m a different person. I won’t be so rude to people, not that I was, but I’ll be much more of a gentleman and, equally, I’ll listen to people a lot more. And as a dear old friend of mine, David Matherson, said when he had a heart attack – and I’ve never had a heart attack, I’ve got a strong heart, I hope I still have – he said that when he got over it and opened his window in his bedroom and he peered out and smelt the fresh air and all the rest of it, he said: `God it was like being born all over again, life was great!’ Well that’s how I feel now, like being born all over again.”
Tony Bullimore learned the power of hope. It was hope of being rescued that drove him to survive and it was the fulfilment of hope that brought him such joy and a new perspective on life. In the same way the gospel promises hope to all of us, and particularly to those of us who find life tough going. A time will come when the Rescuer will arrive and release the world from the pain and suffering. And it’s that hope that drives us forward.
Bullimore reflects a common outlook among those who’ve had a brush with death. In almost religious language he says it’s like being born all over again, a fresh start at life, and one he will make a better fist of. The death and resurrection of Jesus likewise brings us a fresh appreciation of life, a fresh start and a new way of living.
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