The Baptism of Jesus

Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man: words which those of us who went to Benediction every week grew up with, and which sum up everything we have been celebrating over Christmas. They express a truth utterly fundamental to the Christian faith, and one which, as we know, people have always struggled with. And the reason is simple. Contained in this phrase of only nine words are two truths which, although in reality only one truth, seem to contradict each other. If Jesus is true God than how can he be true man too? And if he is true man, then how can he also be true God? All through history people have swung back and forward between these two positions never quite managing to hold the delicate balance in the middle. And even when we do manage to hold the two ends of the equation together, another question arises. If Jesus is true God and true man, at what point in his life did he realise that he was God, a question I offer as the starting point of today’s reflection.

Now I don’t know what your experience was in Kilmarnock, but for the person who taught me in my early years at school in Muirkirk, the answer to this question was never in doubt. For her, Jesus always knew he was God. Even as a new born baby, she told us, he knew everything there is to know and so it never crossed my mind to even question it in those days. I do now, however, and, nearly sixty years later, do not believe for one minute what I was taught then. And the reason is simple. If it’s true, then Jesus is not true man. This was the first of all the earky heresies. Those who taught it were called Docetists and what they said was that, while Jesus was true God, he only pretended to be human, something which would certainly be the case if, as an infant, he had known that the square on the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle was equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. And while this is a slightly flippant example, at the heart of this question lies something of absolutely fundamental importance to us as human beings.

And what we have to hold on to here is that it’s of the very essence of what it is to be human to grow in knowledge and understanding. We learn to walk and to talk along with a thousand other things which enable us to live our lives and grow to maturity. The inability to do these things as infants is not a fault or a flaw in our make-up. It’s what it means to be human. And so Jesus, being ‘true man’ had to learn all these things, just like any other human being. But at a much deeper level, we also have to learn through experience who we are in ourselves as individuals, a process which begins early but is most obvious around the age of two. We also have to learn about God and who we are in relation to God, and, as ‘true man’ Jesus had to learn these things too. And so, like us, he grew into an understanding of who he was. In other words, he did not always know he was God but grew to know this through the course of his life, the question being when did the full realisation of it dawn on him. I’ll give you my own answer to this later, but one of the things everyone would agree on is that , for Jesus, his baptism by John that day in the Jordan, was a crucial moment in this story. At which point I am going to make the first of two infallible statements I will make today.

And the first is that the same God who moved in Jesus as he came up from the water has moved in every single person here. This is not up for discussion. It’s a fact. And so I invite you to remember those times. And, if you have forgotten them – which is perfectly possible – to ask God to stir your memory this morning. Caste your mind back over the years and recognize how you have been led, step by step, through all that has happened in your life, towards a deeper understanding of who God is and who you are in relation to him. Most of the time this will have happened without you really noticing, except on reflection. On a few occasions, it will have been dramatic and powerful as in the Gospel story. But hear, deep within yourself today, the words Jesus heard in the Jordan, spoken now, not about him, but about you. ‘This is my Son/Daughter, the beloved, my favour rests on you.’ And believe them.

And my second infallible statement of the day is that that same God is still at work in you and, even now as we speak, is struggling to reveal himself to you. This, too, is a fact beyond dispute, although only you and you alone can know what it is God is actually doing . But I can offer, not for the first time, one simple clue. Look for the point of resistance. Look for the area in your life where fear is preventing you doing what, deep within yourself, you know is right. I have no idea what that means for you as an individual, but, deep inside yourself, you do, even if you spend a lot of time and energy avoiding it. And the reason this is such a good place to look for signs of what God is doing in you is this. Because it’s not what you necessarily want, there is less likeliehood that you are confusing God’s will with your own. God can and does speak through our own enthusiasms and our own desires – very much so – but they do need careful checking out to make sure that we are not deluding ourselves and simply projecting our own thoughts onto God, a very common mistake in today’s world. And for Jesus, this testing happened in the wilderness, straight after his baptism.

So when did he come to the full realisation that he was God? Well, for me, this truth dawned on him in all its fullness, only at the resurrection. And that, I believe, is when the full truth of who we are will dawn on us too. Having spent our whole lives growing in knowledge, the full truth will be revealed to us at the moment of death. Then we will we know all we need to know and it will be the most wonderful surprise, even if, at this point, we can’t quite bring ourselves to look forward to it.

BIDDING PRAYERS

In the second reading today, Peter speaks of how he has come to realise that anybody of any nationality is acceptable to God. But Peter had not always realised this. He had, in fact, as we read in Acts, resisted it with all his might, even when God had made it as plain as the nose on Peter’s face. And so we pray for the courage and willingness to go where God leads us, especially when it involves letting go of our own ideas and ways of thinking...................Lord hear us

When we were baptized, something happened to us which, at the time, we were incapable of understanding. We were baptized into Christ and called to be his disciples, making him present in the world by the witness our lives. And so we pray that, as the years pass, what was implicit and hidden from us on the day of our baptism will become explicit now and that we will become the people we were called to be all those years ago............Lord hear us

Throughout those years, God has been at work deep within us. In everything that has happened he has been there, calling us to himself and longing to reveal to us the full truth of who we are in his eyes. But for years we resist this movement, afraid to let God near, doubting his very existence and failing to take on board the sheer depth of his love for us; that each of us is his beloved son or daughter in whom he is well pleased. And so we ask for the grace to believe this..................Lord hear us

And we pray for the grace to listen to what God is doing in us now. We are not yet the people he dreams of us being. There is so much more that he longs to show us and share with us; so much more that, with our help and cooperation, he longs to do in the world. To be human is to grow in knowledge, but it is also to recognize the limitations of our knowledge and how much there still is to learn. And so we pray for a profound openness to new forms of truth..............Lord hear us

The first reading spoke of one who will bring true justice; who will open the eyes of the blind, free captives from prison and those in darkness from the dungeon. And so we pray that, through the Gospel of Jesus, men and women throughout the world today will see the great injustices of our time for what they are and be freed from the darkness of ignorance, hatred and prejudice which bedevil humanity. And as we do this, we think in a particular way of the people of Gaza...............Lord hear us

Fundamental to our faith in the modern world is our deep conviction that God is at work and reveals himself in the events of history. And so, as the second part of our Church History Course approaches – it takes place next weekend – we pray that whatever we learn over the coming months will help us understand better everything that has gone before us in the Church so that we are in a better position to discern the movement of God in our own time............Lord hear us