Beloved

The Christmas season comes to a close today. I don’t know about you, but I always find myself feeling a little sad, especially when I have to put away my decorations. It always feels like the end of something special: kind of like cleaning up after a big party, or going back to work the first day after vacation. Normal life sets back in, and the challenges of the real world return.

Of course, this year, the challenges of the real world never really went away. Our Christmas celebrations were different, we watched with concern as the pandemic has only gotten worse, and more recently, the political and social tensions that highlighted much of last summer and fall have returned with a vengeance. We have experienced various challenges in our own local community too: the sadness of loss, uncertainties in regard to work and the future, and the difficulty of living with daily anxiety about the state of things, near and far from home. Add it all up, and it’s enough to discourage anyone.

How fortunate, therefore, for us to hear from God himself in the Gospel just now: “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.” At the Lord’s baptism, the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended, and the voice of God himself was heard. This passage comes from the beginning of Mark’s Gospel — a Gospel which doesn’t have any of the Christmas stories from which we have been hearing the last several weeks. Instead, Jesus just shows up in the desert, appearing out of the blue, wanting to be baptized. But lest we have any doubt about his identity, the voice of God himself assures us that he is no ordinary fellow: he is the Divine Son. He is the fullness of God, not just present before us, but present with us.

That’s the truth that we have been celebrating all through this Christmas season, but notice the setting for it this time: it’s not in a manger scene, or in front of kings bearing gifts, but among a crowd of sinners waiting for repentance. To be baptized was to declare that one’s life needed a radical re-start. It involved not just a confession of sins but the acceptance of a whole new way of life; in today’s terms, think of something like getting sober or going vegan, but even more radical. What a surprise then that Jesus is there among the group – as God’s Son, he didn’t need to repent of anything. But that’s the point; despite being sinless himself, he identifies himself with us completely, even to the point of being baptized. He is God’s Son, yes – but he has come to share in the very depths of our brokenness and tragedy.

The Baptism of Christ (c. 1690) by Antoine Coypel

I would suggest that’s a reality that we should hold on to, especially as we move back to the post-Christmas rhythms of daily life. Perhaps our sorrows and struggles are feeling burdensome; perhaps we are even feeling anxiety because of the uncertainties we face. As I mentioned earlier this Christmas season, our temptation can be to cast around for false hopes and fleeting pleasures – to try to find heaven on earth, or worse, to create it ourselves. But as the saying goes, those who try to build heaven on earth often just end up making life hell. Instead, what we need is to renew our faith in the Savior who has come down into the very depths of our human reality, the muck and disorder of our condition, in order to raise us to something greater.

The Feast of the Lord’s Baptism closes the Christmas season but it also sets the stage for the rest of the year. It reminds us ultimately of the mystery of grace. When Jesus was baptized, it wasn’t the waters that did the washing; rather, he purified them, so that the waters of baptism could purify us and make us sharers in his identity. Because of grace, because of our baptism and all of the sacraments, God says to each of us what he said to Jesus: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Grace is not like fleeting earthly pleasures, where we search for an escapism from our troubles. Nor is it the false promise of utopian thinking, where we think we can solve every problem, our own and society’s at large. No, grace is the divine gift by which we realize that we are loved by God, through which we can face the challenges we have without being overwhelmed by them. It is the heavenly power to live a supernatural life even in the midst of our daily, natural ones: enduring our trials and sorrows in faith and hope, because we are always focused on the higher reality of being God’s beloved sons and daughters.

Friends, the holidays may have ended, and yes, sadly (for me, at least), the Christmas decorations have to come down. But the true gift of the season is the share we have in Jesus’s sonship, and that can remain and flourish throughout the year if we stir into a flame the Lord’s saving grace. Let’s focus ourselves this year on being the Lord’s more faithful disciples in order to be His more faithful witnesses, so that all who are searching for hope and for answers can find it in him through us. May this Eucharist assist us in beginning anew.