Today we come to the end of the Christmas season in church. In some ways,
that fact might seem a bit sad. I remember when I was growing up, it was
always such fun and excitement to put up the Christmas decorations and the
tree, and it gave a real sense of excitement of what was to come this
Christmas. Then, at the end of Christmas, there was a sense of sadness at
taking the decorations down. The lounge looked so bare afterwards. Back to
normal now, until next December.
Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord. Before Vatican II, the Christmas
season went on for longer, and didn’t finish until 2nd February, when we
celebrate Our Lord being taken up as a baby and presented to the Father at the
Temple in Jerusalem. We can debate back and forth the merits of a longer or a
shorter Christmas season, but given that after today we go back to green
vestments, let’s unpack some of the meaning behind finishing the Christmas
season today with the Baptism of the Lord.
At one level, it works because our Gospel readings in Ordinary Time “jump” to
Jesus being a fully-grown man. So celebrating His Baptism today is a good
transition. But there are also links with the Nativity, the birth of Christ.
When the baby Jesus was born, Our Lady showed Him all her love and
affection. At Christ’s Baptism, His Father expressed His love too. He said:
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”. At the birth of Christ,
the wise men came and fell down and worshipped Him. At His Baptism, Christ
is presented to us so that we, too, may worship Him. When we put away the
Christmas decorations and the Christmas crib, the baby Jesus gets put away in a
box or in a cupboard or hidden away somewhere until next Christmas. At the
end of Mass, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is put away in the tabernacle. But
we also take Him with us into the world. In the Baptism of the Lord, Jesus is
not just a nice story of no relevance to the rest of our lives. As a man, He had
to take on all the challenges of living in a world that did not always accept
Him. He did not remain a baby. Our faith in Him can’t just remain a babyish
faith, unable to take the knocks, pressures and difficulties of the modern world.
Our faith has to grow, be nourished, educated, be sacramentally brought to
greater life deep within us. Christmas leads to a new way of life. Baptism
leads to a new way of life. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John chapter three that
we have to be born from above to see the kingdom of God; we have to be born
through water and the Spirit. At Jesus’ Baptism, “the heavens were opened,
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form”. Baptism and the Holy
Spirit go together. The Holy Spirit is at work when someone is baptised, but
also the sacrament of baptism belongs together with the sacrament of
confirmation. In baptism we are born to a new spiritual life with God; we are
filled with the Holy Spirit and God makes His dwelling within us – that is why
we are sometimes called temples of the Holy Spirit. There’s the story of two
Christians, and the one day the one Christian catches the other one smoking a
cigarette. “What are you doing, brother?” he says. “Your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit.” And the other one replies: “I know. I’m burning incense.”
Normally, after we are baptised, after further education in the Faith, we then
receive the sacrament of Confirmation, giving us those gifts of the Holy Spirit
to witness to our faith in the world. It’s a bit like the text of today’s Gospel
acclamation: it doesn’t just say: “This is my beloved Son”. Facts mean those
facts have to be put into practice. Reality means we have to act. Back when I
started at secondary school in the early 90s, computers had been invented, but
many things were still done by paper, and we didn’t have e-mails. It was my
job as the register monitor of my class to collect the register, which was on
paper in those days – I guess now it’s probably electronic. People didn’t have
mobile phones either, so messages to parents were always sent by letter. On on
occasion, one of the other register monitors either dropped his register or was
careless in picking it up, and the letters inside all spilled all over the floor.
Whilst I looked at him gathering them all together again, one of the teachers
said to me: don’t just stand there – help him pick them up! Facts lead to
action. In the same way, the Father doesn’t just say: “This is my beloved
Son”, and we think to ourselves: “Oh, isn’t that nice”, a bit like we might have
done if we had been looking at baby Jesus. Instead the Father gives us both
fact and action: “this is my beloved Son; listen to him”. And listening means
we put into action what He says. Baptism brings us into a new relationship
with almighty God; confirmation helps us live in a new way as His disciples.
Then, just as the Father said: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well
pleased”, then He can look at us, and see His Son in us, and working in us, and
say to us all: with you I am well pleased.
Christmas faith is not to be put back in its box and put away in the cupboard. It
has to be taken out of the box and used all throughout the year.
Curious about exploring things further? If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk