The Baptism of Jesus
We hope to hear those words
someday in Heaven, “You are My beloved son, you are my beloved daughter, with
you I am well pleased.” This is what we
aspire to.
I’d like to share a story
about a family. This woman named
Sharon. Sharon had been married to this
husband, his name was Rob. For seven
years they were married. In this
marriage they also had two beautiful children.
But Sharon’s mother, she began to sense that her daughter was starting
to go through a hard time in her marriage.
One day she called up her daughter Sharon, and she said, “I’ll tell you
what. If I pay for a babysitter will you
go shopping with me tomorrow?” Well of
course Sharon jumped at this chance. And
they went shopping and while they were eating their lunch together the next day
after shopping Sharon’s mother leaned over and she said to her, “Sharon I have
a reason for asking you out today. I
have something important to tell you.
It’s something my mother told me and asked me to tell my daughter when
the right time came. My mother called it
‘Three Guidelines to a Happy Marriage’.”
Though you may or may not
agree with what this mother told Sharon but here’s what she said, “The first
guideline is this; never keep score in marriage. Don’t ever say to your spouse, ‘I’ve been
doing more than my share. It’s not
fair.’ The day you begin to keep score
is the day your marriage begins to die.
The second guideline is
this; never be too busy for your children.
Don’t ever say to them, ‘Can’t you see I’m busy. Come back later.’ The day you become too busy for your children
is the day your communication with them begins to break down.”
The third guideline that
this mother told her daughter is this;
“Never miss a day praying for your family. Don’t ever let 24 hours go buy without
talking to God about your family. The
day you stop conversing with God about your family is the day you deprive them
of the greatest gift a mother can give.”
And as she finished telling
her story to her daughter Sharon took her mother’s hand and her eyes filled
with tears and she said, “Mom, that’s the most beautiful story, the most
beautiful advice you could give me, but why did you wait seven years to tell
me? Why didn’t you tell me the day that
Rob and I got married? It would have
been such a help then, so very, very much.”
And Sharon’s mother said back to her daughter in reply, “Honey I wanted
to tell you the day that you and Rob got married, oh how I wanted to tell you
but I knew it wasn’t the right time. I
knew you weren’t ready then. I had to
wait for the right time when you would understand what I was talking about.”
I really like this
story. And one reason I like it of
course is the beauty and the wisdom this story contains. But I also like it for another reason. Personally it helps me understand something
very important about today’s feast, The Baptism of Jesus.
You know when you read the
gospels carefully and prayerfully we can find ourselves asking a question like this;
Why did Jesus wait so long to begin His preaching? Did you ever think about that? Why didn’t He begin His preaching in say his
20’s rather than wait until He was 30-years-old? To put it another way, why did Jesus remain
in Nazareth for 30 long years when He knew the whole world was crying out for
what He had to say to them? What in the
world was Jesus waiting for? Did you
ever wonder about that?
Well the answer to that
question actually came to me and it was simple but important. Jesus was waiting for John the Baptist to
call the people to repentance.
Now here we need some
background information to understand why this was so. Up until the time that John called the people
to repentance no Jews ever thought of submitting to a baptism. Jews practiced baptism but only for converts,
people who came into Judaism from some other faith. Commenting on this there was a wonderful
author named Wemblyn Barklay and this is what he wrote, “No Jew ever conceived
that he, a member of God’s chosen people could ever need baptism. Baptism was for sinners and no Jew ever
conceived of himself as a sinner shut out from God.”
Now for the first time in
their natural history the Jews realized their own sin and their own need for
God. Never before had their been such a
unique national movement of penitence and a search for God. This was the very moment for which Jesus had
been waiting. Many were conscious of
their sins and conscious of their need for God.
It’s important and conscious of their need for God.
This brings us back to
Sharon’s story that Sharon and her mother, and how it helps us to begin to
understand somewhat why Jesus waited so long to begin preaching to the people
of Israel. It was because the people
were not yet ready for what Jesus had to say.
Until they were conscious of their sins and conscious of their need for
God they would not understand Jesus’ message.
This brings us all to the
most important point of all, how all of this applies to our own lives. Perhaps the most important application we
could offer is this: Jesus can’t begin
to act in our lives and transform us until, like the people of Israel, we are
ready to let Him do it. Nor can Jesus do
anything to make us ready, only we can do that.
It takes prayer and the Holy Spirit.
It takes grace.
And the way we make
ourselves ready is the way Sharon and Israel became ready. It is to recognize and to admit that we
cannot go at it alone in life. It is to
recognize and to admit to ourselves our need for Jesus Christ. We need Him.
Only when we reach this point can Jesus begin to act in our lives to
transform us into what God made us to be.
So we pray for the
wisdom. We pray for the knowledge. We pray for the understanding. We pray for the grace to be ready. This is the good news contained in today’s
readings. God is patient. God is loving. God is ready to give to you the message at
your pace, at your understanding.
This is the important
message that Jesus wants to share with us on this feast of His own
baptism. This is what we pray for as we
return to the Lord’s table to break bread together. We pray that we may recognize and admit our
need for Jesus. Don’t ever forget our
need for Jesus. Pray for that, because
without Him we can do nothing. We pray
that we may turn our lives over to Him and let Him transform us and bring us to
a happiness that we never, ever dreamed possible.
This is the gift of our own
baptism.