Feast of the Baptism Of Jesus (Reprised with More Tweaks)

Of all the feasts we celebrate, the baptism of Jesus is the most difficult for us to understand. We are used to thinking of Baptism as a solution to original sin instead of the means of our initiation into the death and resurrection of Jesus, or our adoption as daughters and sons of God and heirs to his Kingdom, or again, as a consecration to God's very life and service. When viewed this way, and especially when we recall that John's baptism was one of repentance for sin, how do we make sense of a sinless Jesus submitting to it?

I think two points need to be made here. First, Jesus grew into his vocation. His Sonship was real and completely unique but not completely developed or historically embodied from the moment of his conception; rather it was something he embraced more and more fully over his lifetime. Secondly, his Sonship was the expression of solidarity with us and his fulfillment of the will of his Father to be God-with-us. Jesus will incarnate the Logos of God definitively in space and time, but this event we call the incarnation encompasses and is only realized fully in his life, death, and resurrection -- not in his nativity. Only in allowing himself to be completely transparent to this Word, only in "dying to self," and definitively setting aside all other possible destinies does Jesus come to fully embody and express the Logos of God in a way which expresses his solidarity with us as well.

It is probably the image of Baptism-as-consecration then which is most helpful to us in understanding Jesus' submission to John's baptism. Here the man Jesus is set apart as the one in whom God will truly "hallow his name". Here, in an act of manifest commitment, Jesus' humanity is placed completely at the service of the living God and of those to whom God is committed. Here his experience as one set apart for God establishes him as completely united with us and our human condition. This solidarity is reflected in his statement to John that together they must fulfill the will of God. And here too Jesus anticipates the death and resurrection he will suffer for the sake of both human and Divine destinies which, in him, will be reconciled and inextricably wed to one another. His baptism establishes the pattern not only of HIS humanity, but that of all authentic humanity. So too does it reveal the nature of true divinity, for our's is a God who becomes completely subject to our sinful reality in order to free us for his own entirely holy one.

I suspect that even at the end of the Christmas season we are still scandalized by the incarnation. We still stumble over the intelligibility of this baptism, and the propriety of it especially. Our inability to fathom Jesus' baptism, and our tendency to be shocked by it, just as JohnBp was probably shocked, says we are not comfortable, even now, with a God who enters exhaustively into our reality. We remain uncomfortable with a Jesus who is tempted like us in ALL THINGS, and matures into his identity as God's only begotten Son. We are puzzled by one who is holy as God is holy and, as the creed affirms, "true God from true God" and who, evenso, is consecrated to and by the one he calls Abba and to the service of his Kingdom and people. A God who comes to us in smallness, weakness, submission, and self-emptying is really not a God we are comfortable with --- despite three weeks of Christmas celebrations and reflections, and a prior four weeks of preparation -- is it? In fact, none of this was comfortable for early Christians either. They were embarrassed by Jesus' baptism by John --- as Matt's added explanation of the reasons for it in vv 14-15 indicate. They were concerned that perhaps it indicated Jesus inferiority to John the Baptist and they wondered if perhaps it meant that Jesus had sinned prior to his baptism. And perhaps this is as it should be. Perhaps the scandal attached signals to us we are getting this right theologically.

After all, today's feast tells us that Jesus' public ministry begins with a consecration and commissioning by God which is somewhat similar to our own baptismal consecration. The difference is that Jesus' accepts life under the sway of sin in his baptism. The story of his temptation or testing which follows underscores this acceptance. His public life begins with an event that prefigures his end as well. There is a real dying to self involved here, not because Jesus has a false self which must die -- as each of us has --- but because his life is placed completely at the disposal of his God, his Abba, in solidarity with us. Loving another, affirming the being of another in a way which subordinates one's own being to theirs --- putting one's own life at their disposal and surrendering all other life-possibilities always entails a death of sorts -- and a kind of rising to new life as well. The dynamics present on the cross are present here too -- complete and obedient (that is open and responsive) submission to the will of God, and an unfathomable subjection to that which sin makes necessary so that God's love may conquer precisely here as well.

Follow-up on Part-time Eremitical Life

Well, I've riled some feathers in responding to questions about the "Saturday-only" hermit. Mainly, I think I have been misheard or misunderstood so I am going to post the comments received and try once again to make clear what I am and am not saying.

[[For heaven's sake, the life of the monastic or hermit is not holy orders. I don't think you have the right to claim that if one's particular vocation in that mileau (sic) is not precisely what has developed heretofore (or, considering how canon law develops, which flavor or style of the life 'won out' over others) that they ought to go back and reconsider their baptismal vows. My goodness, what an uncharitable remark. My mother is a Ph.D. in nursing; is she a better nurse than a first year? She'd be the first to tell me, after 45 years in nursing, it depends on the nurse. All of your arguments in your responding post seem to follow the fallacy that more time in service or more closely aligned with a particular mode of canon law makes one a better hermit. Bah. Is my close friend, a Jesuit of 50 years a better priest than the newest member? Is a Saturday only theologian better than a 7-day-per-week theologian (frankly a closer analogy since neither involve a sacrament)?]]

I am honestly not sure what I said that was uncharitable in suggesting that anyone in the lay state (or for that matter anyone in any state) reconsider their baptismal promises and commitments. The situation I was addressing was this: there is a failure throughout the church to esteem the lay state, to see it as possessing the dignity it does. What has happened over time and for a number of reasons (including the clericalization of the church) is that when adults desire to make adult commitments to and in Christ they look not first to their baptismal promises (or even to their marriage vows) and to specifiying those vows as needed at this point in time, but automatically to the idea of multiplying vows (and so making private or public vows) as the only form of adult commitment possible besides ordination. Sometimes these even conflict with marriage vows as when married people seek to make vows of celibacy.)

Further, because the Church has consistently given the impression or explicitly stated because of a misreading of Thomas that the laity are in an inferior state of vocation, those who really desire to live the fullness of discipleship have come to believe it will only be possible for priests, nuns, brothers, sisters, monks, hermits, and consecrated virgins --- and not as lay persons. But this is untrue. Vatican II was clear about this. The lay state is part of a universal call to holiness, an adult and exhaustive form of holiness which glorifies God every bit as much as any other vocation or state of life. How it is uncharitable to ask people to START here, and if they are in the lay state to take responsibility for that and for the call to holiness and the dignity of this vocation, I really can't see. This has nothing to do with hermits or non-hermits. It is a problem in the church as a whole, and a quite serious one. We have hundreds of thousands of lay people who believe their vocations are second-class or juvenile and less exhaustive forms of discipleship than those of nuns, brothers, priests, etc. They live and are pained everyday by the sense that their call from/by God is an inferior one. I have simply said this is not the case. The Church has emphatically said this is not the case. So I don't see this as uncharitable but charitable.

I do not know why the discussion morphed into terms of better/worse or younger/older either. I have tried assiduously to reject characterizations framed in terms of better and worse. For instance, I have written time and again that consecrated hermits are no better than lay hermits, but rather that the rights and obligations they have in the Church because of their canonical standing are different. Again, I think we are seeing in your comments the deeply entrenched holdover from the misapplied scholastic language of "objective superiority". That is especially true of your comment that neither monastic nor eremitical lives are holy orders or matters of a Sacrament -- as though that makes them less significant. It does not. For certain, the better/worse language did not come from my posts because in regard to vocations and states of life I reject it absolutely. Thomas also rejected this language and so he drew careful arguments noting that an objectively superior state of life does NOT mean a subjectively better or more holy Christian. Today, the solution needs to be formulated differently than Thomas did; the various states of life are different from one another, with different rights, obligations, and responsibilities, but none are better than the others. Each one is rooted in a call by God and is invested with infinite worth and dignity. Again, different, not better.

Regarding younger/older and experienced/in-experienced, there is no doubt that we all grow into our vocations. Those who wish to be hermits may begin by building in silence, solitude, prayer, penance, and stricter separation from the world. In and of itself this does not make them a hermit. At some point solitude herself MAY open the door to these people and a change takes place if they accept the invitation to enter. In such a case they are no longer solitary persons grappling with the individual elements of the canon or life. Instead, they are hermits in a fundamental sense now living the silence of solitude and allowing (or learning to further allow) everything else to flow from and support that life. Once the door has been opened and one has walked through it in response, growth continues (or should continue). Meanwhile, the central reality of these persons' lives -- the silence of solitude which is a short hand reference to union with God and the quies that flows from it --- will call for greater external silences, stricter separation from the world, etc. Again, not better or worse, but different!

[[And please, Sister, let's not use the straw man fallacy. Comparing a person's Saturday only eremitc life with a saturday only state of motherhood is pathetic. Sorry, it is. Do I need to spll (sic) it out? If one has committed one's heart to a solitary life as best as they are able, but it involves work outside the home, what is that to you? A mother and spouse have an entirely other promise--of course they don't get (much) time off. The point is that I am and many are pushing the meaning of words and of particular callings. You are not, and neither is canon law, the first or last word on what constitutes an eremitic life. You certainly are the last word on what it constitutes to you and those of your persusion or particular charism, but that's it. Period. Don't lay down roadbloacks to others. The fact that is that there IS a groundswell, a grass-roots movement of folks, in the married or other secular states looking for a deeper commitment to their spiritual development, with expression in their lifestyle and self-styling--they are allowed to use old words in new ways. Especially when they don't impinge on the nature of the sacramental forms.

I think the analogy holds. If a person babysits a child once a week, that does not make her a Mother no matter how badly she would like to be one. If a person lives an eremitical or desert day once a week, this does not make her a hermit or desert dweller no matter how much she would like to think it does. The illustrations can be multiplied: if a person leads a Communion Service once a week (or even several days a week) on his pastor's day(s) off, this does not make him a priest or pastor (though he may be very priestly and pastoral). If a person prays contemplatively once a week this does not make them a contemplative. A person who spends a day a week at a monastery or enclosed in their own house is not necessarily a monk or nun who lives a cloistered life. It is simply not appropriate or accurate to speak of a Saturday-only eremitical LIFE as you have done --- unless you are speaking about a hermit who is actually failing to live her call to a LIFE of the silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, and separation from the world, etc. Here the distinction another diocesan hermit once drew might be helpful: many people are called upon to build in elements of eremitical spirituality in their lives, but this does not make them hermits nor argue that they are called to eremitical life per se. Put another way we could say that some people's lives have an eremitical flavor or cast without being eremitical lives.

You can and probably should feel free to push the meaning of words all you like, but in doing so you need to beware of emptying them of meaning altogether and making them incapable of communicating anything substantive. You should also not be surprised however when the onus of demonstrating the legitimacy of your usage falls directly on you. Whether we like it or not, the Church has a normative understanding of what constitutes eremitical life. Those of us who live that from the inside know the wisdom of this definition. We know from the inside what the struggles and joys of FULL-TIME silence of solitude, etc, mean -- as opposed to a single desert day a week -- for instance. There is simply no comparison. Both are good, but they are also not the same thing, and they require different names as a result. The Church's normative statement (Canon 603) has been formulated in a way which ensures certain non-negotiable and foundational elements even while it allows flexibility and diversity in expression. You are mistaken then if you believe canon law is not open to newness in this regard, and you are certainly mistaken if you say that I am not. However, to push words in ways where they may mean anything one would like is simply to ensure they mean nothing at all.

As I have written now a number of times, a hermit who needs to work outside the hermitage on a part-time basis is not ideal but this can still be made to work on a case by case basis. However, someone who needs to work FULL-TIME, especially outside the hermitage has, I sincerely believe, ceased in essential ways to live the fundamental elements which define the life. Meanwhile, back to the Saturday-only example which is even more troublesome:  one day a week of contemplative prayer, silence and solitude is NOT an eremitical LIFE. It is a wonderful and helpful thing, but it is not what Canon 603 (or the Catechism of the Catholic Church or the whole eremitical tradition) recognizes as an eremitical LIFE. The reason this is important is because the Church recognizes eremitical life as she discerns it is to be defined as a pastoral gift to the Church and world. (See  below.)

[[So, I think we should just agree to disagree. I guess it comes down to who is the more accepting here? What is the most compassionate response? For that matter, why don't you go back and consider your own baptismal vows---why weren't they enough? What makes your life intrinsically 'other' than other's? It doesn't sound very nice the other way, does it?]]

While we may agree to disagree, there is a distinction between being genuinely accepting and merely being uncritical and uncaring of meaning or truth. Compassion requires that we be truly loving, and it is not loving to allow a person to live a lie, or to empty meaningful terms of content when that content is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and World. Canon 603 is such a gift. It defines the nature of eremitical life in a world and at a time when dislocation, isolation, alienation, and the search for meaning in our isolation and alienation are rampant. Even so, it is a canon which allows for great diversity even while (and perhaps because) it clearly spells out foundational, or non-negotiable elements comprising authentic solitary eremitical life. It is the entire vision of eremitical life which it provides us which is a gift of the Holy Spirit to both the Church and world.

I will repeat my main point from the other post because this is the true answer to "What is it to you?" above as well. FULL-TIME hermits who have allowed isolation and marginality to be redeemed and thus transformed into the "Silence of solitude," can speak effectively to all those persons in our parishes, dioceses, neighborhoods and world who CANNOT leave their situations for time off one day a week -- those who are chronically ill, disabled, the isolated elderly, impoverished, etc. Hermits' lives are compassionate answers to many of the most significant questions these myriads of people have and are. These people need to know that their aloneness is not a sign of the senselessness of life or abandonment by God, but the ground out of which God can call them to the silence of solitude and union with himself. I don't think a person who is busy, engaged, working, socializing 5-6 days a week, and then takes a day for silence, solitude, and contemplative prayer can effectively serve in this way. Hermits, whether lay or consecrated, who live the terms of Canon 603 with the whole of their lives CAN minister to these people in a way I believe no one else can do quite as fully or effectively. I believe this ministry is part of the charism of eremitical life and a reason the life (not the avocation) is growing today. It is certainly a reason eremitical spirituality is growing today, but again, embracing elements of this spirituality does not make one a hermit anymore than my own embracing of elements of Ignatian spirituality makes me a Jesuit.

Finally then, on the question regarding my own call to something other than the lay state. This is not a new question and I have written on it before two years ago or so, so please check that out. Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: My credibility regarding the Importance of the Lay Vocation My own discernment of this took several extended periods of time, and my discernment of a call to consecrated eremitical life rather than lay eremitical life took about 25 years. In answering that call finally (with perpetual profession and consecration) I did so because I felt called to accept rights and responsibilities that did not flow from baptismal commitments, but from a different call as well: I was called (both subjectively and objectively) to consecrated celibacy and a nuptial or spousal relationship with Christ, and I was called to witness to that publicly with a form of love which was more eschatological and universal than otherwise. I was called to be obedient in a way which specified my usual call to obedience with a legitimate superior, the elements of Canon Law, the Church's definition of eremitical life, etc, and again, I was called to do that publicly. The same is true of poverty. I felt called to a degree and kind of poverty which does not automatically flow from the baptismal or lay state. I found I needed this commitment to live freely what I felt called to.

But let me be clear, I did indeed live my baptismal commitments fully before this and I realized that I might well never be admitted to the consecrated state as a hermit if the Church did not agree that this was God's own Call for me AND FOR THE CHURCH. (In that case, I would need to come to terms with the idea that perhaps I had not discerned properly). In fact the Church DID agree, and mediated God's own call, my response and profession, and God's consecration to me. Had the Church said no, I would have remained in the lay state, a lay hermit, and tried to live this full-time life in a way which glorified God and gave honor to the lay state. It would have been a different life, one where I would still be doing much of what I am doing now, but with different rights and responsibilities in terms of the Church. (I need to say here that the fact that I DID come to terms with living as a lay hermit is important to who I am today as diocesan hermit and allows me to esteem lay eremitical life better than I think some do. It also allows me to appreciate the differences between the two forms of eremitical call. So again, as I well know --- these are not to be seen in terms of better or second-best, but different.)

Those different rights and responsibilities include the living out of Canon 603 with the whole of my life in as faithful a way as I can. Part of the responsibility means learning more and more about the forms and fundamentals of the eremitical life over the past @2000 years of Church life and why they are included in the canon. It means standing in that tradition and taking it on in ways which allow it to speak to the contemporary world. It does not mean emptying the term of meaning or trying to apply new senses to it before I understand from WITHIN the life and have thus accepted a personal responsibility for it. "Hermit" is not a word without history or meaning, and while the application of this meaning can certainly vary, like most things we need to accept the basic meaning and live it before we start jettisoning bits in the name of some sort of individual liberty.

I hope this clarifies some points of misunderstanding.

On Esteeming the Lay State and the Multiplication of Vows

[[Dear Sister Laurel, why do you think lay people feel a need to make private vows rather than living their Baptismal consecration more fully? You seem to suggest there is a failure here and that private vows are being made without good enough reasons, as when you refer to substantive reasons being needed to justify more vows.]]

Good question, but complex too and one I can only start to answer. I think the reasons are several so let me point out some I am aware of.

First, there is the "objective superiority" language of Thomas which has mainly been misunderstood by non-Thomists (and some "neo-Thomists" as well), and which is largely beyond reach now in our time and culture. (It is not a matter of translating words but instead of translating language as a whole: mindsets, philosophical categories, etc and often this is simply impossible to accomplish for any but true experts in scholastic thought.) Because Thomas (et al) spoke of vocations to "states of perfection" in terms of "objective superiority" we naturally translate this into the dichotomous or competitive language of superiority/inferiority, better/worse, special/ordinary, higher/lower, perfection/imperfection and so forth. But, as far as I can see, Thomas eschewed language of better/worse, inferiority, imperfection, or higher/lower better than those who followed him and failed to understand him as well as they might have. Even so this language is no longer helpful and has entered our culture and especially our church in ways which make it hard to properly or adequately esteem either the lay state, and within that, the married state or dedicated single life. We truly need to find ways to esteem the gifts which these are, and especially the ways in which they witness to God's love and reveal God to the world, which do not buy into the "this-worldly" competitive language. Similarly we need to find ways to esteem the gifts of consecrated life, priesthood, etc without buying into all-too-worldly concepts and language of competitiveness and status (in the common sense of that term).


Secondly, I think that there is simply too little personal reflection on what is entailed in Baptism/Confirmation and the commitments made there by the laity themselves. The institutional Church tries to make up for (or better, perhaps, encourage) this in homilies, adult faith formation, the commissioning of ministers, the sprinkling rite and renewal of baptismal promises done at various points throughout the Church year at Mass but the responsibility for reflection and expression here falls directly on the laity. In the main this failure to reflect adequately is due to a failure to implement Vatican II as thoroughly as it required. Part of this means that Baptism is still seen mainly as something done to babies which washes away sin rather than ALSO and even primarily being an act of consecration which should be ratified throughout one's life in decisions every bit as momentous as those flowing from religious vows, ordination, and entrance into the ordained or consecrated states.

Sometimes I receive emails from people thinking about making private vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Occasionally these are from married persons who feel something driving them to do this. When we explore what is going on it almost always comes down to two things: 1) they have not reflected at all on what their baptismal promises (or consecration more generally!) requires of them NOW, and 2) they have not done anything similar with their marriage vows. Once they engage in this kind of reflection and find ways to renew and specify the meaning of these vows in the present moment there is rarely a need for additional vows. After all, the evangelical counsels are meant to be entered into in some form or expression by every Christian. Working out within the context of a marriage how poverty, chastity (chaste love), and obedience (a faithful hearkening to the Word and Presence of God in our lives) are to be exercised by both persons is a necessary exercise. What must be remembered though is that Religious vows are specifications of baptismal vows, and I would suggest that marriage vows are also specifications of baptismal vows. They oblige us to reflect on this foundational commitment and to specify it further in our lives.

It may not be realized by most people, but religious vows are not made and then set aside as wholly understood or exhaustively entered into on the day of profession. (Though neither do I mean they are only half-heartedly or partially entered into on this occasion!) What I mean is that vows are not only contracts or covenants which bind legally or morally; they are doorways through which one enters the world (and the Kingdom) in a new way, from a new perspective, with a new mind and heart. One spends an entire lifetime exploring what they mean and oblige to; one spends an entire lifetime conforming oneself (or being conformed) to these. Obedience at temporary profession may look very different than it looks 25 years later. It may look very different to the superior than it does to the postulant. Poverty and chastity (or conversatio morum and stability) are similar and their shape changes as the person matures spiritually and personally. Thus religious or consecrated men and women regularly renew their vows (or other commitments) publicly (in community), and they do so privately much more frequently than that. (In truth every day is a lived reflection on these vows.) Baptismal vows are the framework for living a life of discipleship and if we have not reflected on our baptismal or marriage vows for some time, we may have failed to reflect seriously on the framework or shape discipleship is meant to take in our own lives.

Thirdly then, I think we need to provide liturgical options for the renewal of baptismal and other commitments. The Easter Liturgy is wonderful for this, the rite of sprinkling and renewal of vows which stems from this and continues throughout the church year, especially when it attends Baptisms of new members, can be helpful, but it must not simply become pro forma or routine. One reason people may fail to take these commitments seriously is because individual parishes do not do so either. Today, for instance, we have parishes which fulfill the directives and honor the teaching of the Church on baptism by requiring significant preparation on the part of families and godparents. They understand the theology of baptism and treat initiation into the faith community as something of great dignity. However, we also have parishes which "make it as easy as possible" despite knowing that once baptized the child will never be seen in the church again except perhaps for the occasional wedding or funeral. We are caught between two paradigms or theologies of baptism, the first which focused almost solely on the washing away of original sin, and the second which adopts the richer vision of baptism as the Sacrament which makes of the person part of the People of God, the LAOS, from which we get the theology of the lay state. The first paradigm and acquiescence to pressure to "just baptize the kid or I will find someone who will" is a source of our failure to regard adequately vocations to the lay state because it itself fails to regard initiation into the People (laos) of God adequately.

Baptism is not a right. It is a privilege. Belonging to the People of God is a gift and privilege --- though one we ordinarily do not exclude people from. Being a member of the Body of Christ is a gift and privilege with corresponding rights and obligations. We must, as a church, give full and consistent voice to this message across the board. Insofar as this means rejecting the older paradigm of baptism and its rather mechanical approach to original sin as inadequate, we must do that --- not just intellectually but in all of our pastoral praxis. Otherwise we give double messages and people come away thinking baptism (and entrance into the lay state) are merely received passively while implying no real change in our humanity (forgetting we become a New Creation!) or ongoing maturing commitment and personal engagement. In other words, we give the impression that except for washing away the stain of original sin when we were infants (whatever THAT means to us really) they are just not all that big a deal. The result is we mistakenly come to believe it is only through OTHER VOWS, entrance into OTHER states which are solely associated with adulthood and active and mature commitment that we reach the fullness of the Christian vocation.

I have to cut this off at this point. I hope this helps as a beginning answer (for there are certainly other reasons I have not mentioned). If it raises more questions or leaves confusion, please get back to me.

Feast of the Baptism of Jesus

Of all the feasts we celebrate, the baptism of Jesus is the most difficult for us to understand. We are used to thinking of Baptism as a solution to original sin instead of the means of our initiation into the death and resurrection of Jesus, or our adoption as daughters and sons of God and heirs to his Kingdom, or again, as a consecration to God's very life and service. When viewed this way, and especially when we recall that John's baptism was one of repentance for sin, how do we make sense of a sinless Jesus submitting to it?

I think two points need to be made here. First, Jesus grew into his vocation. His Sonship was real and completely unique but not completely developed or historically embodied from the moment of his conception; rather it was something he embraced more and more fully over his lifetime. Secondly, his Sonship was the expression of solidarity with us and his fulfillment of the will of his Father to be God-with-us. Jesus will incarnate the Logos of God definitively in space and time, but this event we call the incarnation encompasses and is only realized fully in his life, death, and resurrection -- not in his nativity. Only in allowing himself to be completely transparent to this Word, only in "dying to self," and definitively setting aside all other possible destinies does Jesus come to fully embody and express the Logos of God in a way which expresses his solidarity with us as well.

It is probably the image of Baptism-as-consecration then which is most helpful to us in understanding Jesus' submission to John's baptism. Here the man Jesus is set apart as the one in whom God will truly "hallow his name". Here, in an act of manifest commitment, Jesus' humanity is placed completely at the service of the living God and of those to whom God is committed. Here his experience as one set apart for God establishes him as completely united with us and our human condition. And here too Jesus anticipates the death and resurrection he will suffer for the sake of both human and Divine destinies which, in him, will be reconciled and inextricably wed to one another. His baptism establishes the pattern not only of HIS humanity, but that of all authentic humanity. So too does it reveal the nature of true divinity, for our's is a God who becomes completely subject to our sinful reality in order to free us for his own entirely holy one.

I suspect that even at the end of the Christmas season we are still scandalized by the incarnation. We still stumble over the intelligibility of this baptism, and the propriety of it especially. Our inability to fathom Jesus' baptism, and our tendency to be shocked by it, just as JohnBp was probably shocked, says we are not comfortable, even now, with a God who enters exhaustively into our reality. We remain uncomfortable with a Jesus who is tempted like us in ALL THINGS, and matures into his identity as God's only begotten Son. We are puzzled by one who is holy as God is holy and, as the creed affirms, "true God of true God" and who, evenso, is consecrated to the one he calls Abba and to the service of his Kingdom and people. A God who comes to us in smallness, weakness, submission, and self-emptying is really not a God we are comfortable with --- despite three weeks of Christmas celebrations and reflections, and a prior four weeks of preparation -- is it? And perhaps this is as it should be. Perhaps the scandal attached signals to us we are getting this right theologically.

Afterall, today's feast tells us that Jesus' public ministry begins with a consecration. His public life begins with an event that prefigures his end as well. There is a real dying to self involved here, not because Jesus has a false self which must die -- as each of us has --- but because his life is placed completely at the disposal of his God, his Abba. Loving another, affirming the being of another in a way which subordinates one's own being to theirs --- putting one's own life at their disposal always entails a death of sorts -- and a kind of rising to new life as well. The dynamics present on the cross are present here too -- complete and obedient (that is open and responsive) submission to the will of God, and an unfathomable subjection to that which sin makes necessary so that God's love may conquer precisely here as well.