Reason demands that this feast of the Lord’s baptism, which I think could be called the feast of his nativity, should follow soon after the Lord’s nativity in the same season of Christmas, even though many years intervened between the two events. For at Christmas he was born a man; today he is reborn sacramentally. Then he was born from the Virgin; today he is born in mystery.
When he was born a man, his mother Mary held him close to her heart. When he is born in mystery, God the Father embraces him with his voice, saying: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: Listen to him. The mother caresses the tender baby on her lap; the Father upholds his Son by his loving testimony. The mother holds the child for the Magi to adore; the Father reveals his Son to be worshipped by all peoples.
That is why the Lord Jesus went to the river for baptism; that is why he wanted his holy body to be washed with Jordan’s water. Someone might ask, “Why would a holy man desire baptism?” Listen to the answer: Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched.
For the consecration of Christ involves a more significant consecration of the water. For when the Saviour is washed, all water for our baptism is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages. Christ is the first to be baptized, then, so that Christians will follow after him with confidence.
I understand the
mystery in the following way. The column of fire went before the sons of Israel through the
Red Sea so they could follow on their brave journey; the column went first
through the waters to prepare a path for those who followed. As the apostle
Paul says, what was accomplished then was a baptism in mystery. Clearly it
was a baptism in the sense that the cloud was covering the people and
bringing them through the water.
But it is Christ the
Lord who does all these things: as in the column of fire he went through the sea
before the sons of Israel, so now in the column of his body he goes through
baptism in the river before the Christian people. As at the time of the Exodus, the column
provided light for the Israelites who followed, now it gives light to the hearts of
believers. Then it made a firm pathway through the waters of a sea; now it strengthens
the footsteps of faith in the bath of baptism.