Cycle B Ordinary Time Week 1 Baptism of Our Lord

God is Easy to Please

In this new liturgical year, the story of Jesus that we shall follow is that written by Mark.
In the early years of the emerging Christian Church, the very early Christian communities
did not feel any need to commit the memory of Jesus words and acts to writing. They still had
the disciples with them to tell and re-tell the stories; besides they all lived with the
expectation that Jesus would return within their lifetime. But a few decades after the death of
Jesus, the disciples started to die one by one and there was no sign that Jesus was about to
return. It suddenly became important to put the good news in writing and Mark was the first
one to do this.
Being the first gospel to be written, unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not have all the
grand and magical stories about the birth of Jesus and the other amazing stories that surround
it. Instead, Mark chooses to begin his story with the baptism of Jesus who was already 30 by
that time. In Mark’s version, Jesus humbly and quietly emerges from obscurity and is
called to a unique mission.
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Mark’s account of the baptism of Jesus was plain and simple, only five lines. And what
can we get from these five lines?
The focus of the narrative is on the tearing open of the heavens, the descent of the Holy
Spirit in the form of a dove, and the voice that declares Jesus as the beloved Son pleasing
to the Heavenly Father.
In ancient belief, the tearing of the heavens marks the possibility of a relationship
between God and the human person. It is also a manifestation of the divine desire to be
related and united with man: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down . . .”
(Isaiah).
And so when the heavens were torn open, God unites himself to humanity by descending
on the God-man Jesus in the form of a dove. And the words of divine acceptance were
pronounced: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Let us pause here and ask a simple
question: why did the Heavenly Father say this? What has Jesus done?
Jesus is not the only one who seeks out John to be baptized. As Mark tells us, “People of
the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and
were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.” The people
who were attracted by John’s teaching and who desired to join his revival movement were
mainly people from the South.
But Jesus was not form Judea; he is not from the premiere city of Jerusalem either. He is a
native of Galilee which is in the northern most part of Palestine. And what was Galilee
known for? No, not for their prophets but for their armed Zealots who hid in the highlands,
plotting to violently overthrow their Roman conquerors. And so, the people there were
perhaps wondering what this Galilean was doing there.
Ano nga ba? At that time, Jesus was around 30 years old, and he has not done anything
extraordinary at that time. He has not worked any miracles, nor preached with wisdom. All
that he has done up until now was to lead a simple life in a small town, assisting his father
perhaps with his carpentry work. And so, his goodness was hidden, so much so that later on,
when he preached his first sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth, the people were surprised.
But that is the point. Jesus was so humble and self-effacing that no one suspected how holy
he was. It is perhaps this humility that helps him to be dedicated to the Father and the mission
he entrusts to him that makes him pleasing to the Father. So dedicated was he to his mission
that he took that three-hour journey by foot from Galilee to ask to be baptized by John even if
he did not need it.
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” The Father approves of Jesus,
approves of the way he had been living for the past 30 years, a quiet life with his family,
simply going about his work and obediently performing the normal chores his parents asked
him to help them with.
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And so what can we pick out from the five sentence account of Mark on the baptism of
Jesus?
First, we are reminded that the heavens are torn open on this day because God wants our
friendship above everything else. All he asks of us is a heart that is centered on him, always
ready and generously willing to do his will.
Second, the Spirit that empowered Jesus to make his new beginning is the same Spirit that
empowered us in our own baptism. Few of us can remember the moment. Most of us were
carried to the font as infants in the arms of our father or mother, accompanied by our
godparents. Our name was given to us, our commitment was spoken for us, our future was
promised to God for us. And poor us, we spend our lives catching up with our beginning,
struggling to make good the very big promises made on our behalf. What started at our
christening needs to be validated by our personal choices and actions. We have not left our
baptism behind us because it continues to face us each day as God’s expectation of us.
But we must remember that the Spirit does not empower us only at baptism. The Spirit
does not retire after we are baptized; the Spirit is always there to inspire and strengthen us
whenever we face challenges to our Christian commitment or about to make important
decisions in our life. The Spirit that was with Christ is the same Spirit that continues to be
with us.
Third, we must remember what C. S. Lewis reminds us: “The Christian does not think
God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
We don't need to do extraordinary things in order to please God and fulfill our life's
purpose; we just need to do what God wants us to do, to carry out our vocation and mission
and do it with as much love  and humility as we can.
Neither does the Lord does not expect us to be perfect. Many time perhaps, we think that
we can't really be pleasing to God because we are so full of sins, sinful tendencies,
and selfish attitudes. And when we see this part of ourselves, we get discouraged and think
we'll never be good enough and pleasing to the Lord. But that is not the way God thinks,
perhaps. From God's perspective, the soul that is more in need of his grace is the one that
attracts his love the most. Like a good mother, God pays special attention to the child who
is sick and weak. As Jesus himself said, “I have come not to seek out the righteous, but the
sinners . . .” Our misery is what attracts his mercy.
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Simple as it is, the narrative provided the Markan community with an opportunity not
simply to understand Jesus but also reflect on their own baptism. By God’s gift of faith, they
moved from acknowledging their sins, to a change of heart, to baptism where they are made
adopted sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father though the gift of the Holy Spirit. This
feast challenges us Christians today to reflect on our own baptism not only as gaining rich
godparents who are friends of your parents, but as the moment when we received the same
gift of the Spirit and given the mission to live in humble obedience to that Father’s will
and who us commissioned us to proclaim the good news by the example of our lives.
The feast of Epiphany today brings the Christmas season to an end. To mark the day, here’s a
litany called “The Work of Christmas” composed by Howard Thurman, an African-American
theologian, educator, and civil rights leader.
When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
The poem “The Work of Christmas” is from Howard Thurman’s The Mood of Christmas and
Other Celebrations and is used by permission of Friends United Press. All rights reserved.

The celebration of the Baptism of the Lord concludes the Christmas season and is also the
first Sunday in Ordinary Time. We are invited to enter into the ordinariness of our lives and
to humbly submit ourselves to the will of the Heavenly Father who finds great delight in us.
And may our obedience to the Father unite us more deeply to him.