The Baptism of the Lord—Doorway to Our Destiny in Christ
Some High Falutin Christology teaches us who Christ is truly leading us to be.
If you look at the Nicene Creed, you will see a list of what we believe as Christians. This comes from the Council of Nicea in the fourth Century. A great many questions about the nature of Jesus were discussed and answered there in Nicea and the fruit was the Nicene Creed which we will say in a few minutes and which will delineate what we believe.
Of Jesus we believe he is one in substance with the Father who also became incarnate and, therefore, he also became fully human. This little detail is significant and played a key part at the Council of Nicea.
How human is Jesus?
The question comes out how human was Jesus. If we call him God and man, is he half God and half man, all God appearing as man, All man with special qualities of God. How do we define Jesus? Ultimately it was St Athanasius of Alexander and St. Gregory of Nazianzus who determined that Jesus was fully human and fully divine.
This is important because, if Jesus was half human, then what did the Cruxifixion accomplish? The same with the idea that Jesus could be fully divine under human appearances. However, understanding the one who is both one in substance with the Father and fully human helps us to understanding our salvation. One of the sayings attributed to St. Gregory of Nazianzus is what is not crucified is not saved. Therefore, if Jesus was only half human, humanity would be lost. He was instead fully human and fully divine, so since Jesus is fully human, then when he is crucified, all humanity is saved because of his humanity dying on the cross for us.
The Baptism of the Lord
Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord and taking that same reasoning, we can begin to realize that Jesus is fully human so that all human qualities are baptized and the Lord leads us to bring that humanity to be sanctified in Christ.
This is important because many times you will meet people who feel they our outside the salvation of Christ. They are bad humans. However, all of humanity was baptized in Christ by John so that every human being is united to Christ by his Baptism and Then Christ takes that baptized humanity and leads us to be sanctified in Christ by his living his humanity and sanctifying it.
Remember, the next thing that happens in this Baptism is the Holy Spirit leads Jesus to the Desert to encounter the devil for forty days. So it is with us.
This is why it is so wrong to create a faith filled with exclusions of people not qualified to be saved. We have to send the same message the pope tells us to send—all have the calling to holiness in Christ. It begins with the fact that Christ as human was baptized and in doing so brings all humanity to his mission on the cross.
If you notice my preaching style, it is not one of seeking to avoid sin to draw closer to Christ, although that is a given. It is rather we have a mission to lead people to Christ and all those people who feel for one reason or another their reality is beyond Jesus’ ability to save. We can teach that their reality was embraced by Christ and then he leads us to bring it to sanctity through listening to the Holy Spirit help us to conform our lives to his grace and teachings in the love of God.
This is an important message that anyone who feels they are outside the ability to be saved, you must teach that is not true. Christ’s baptism brings all of humanity into the fold to be led toward sanctification in Christ and in Christ. We learn how to transform that humanity into holiness through that same Christ offering his full humanity on the Cross and seeking that all may be saved.
So this is an important day in our own salvation and the salvation of all of humanity. The final part of the journey to our salvation begins at Jesus baptism and continues to his death and resurrection where all that was human was crucified and then in His resurrection we have the pathway to glory.
What is the promised glory?
Finally, we have to remember what that pathway to glory means. We are not led to a nice place called Heaven but to a transformation of our being. We become divinized through the salvific action in Christ. This is also what we much teach others. All have a calling to their destiny in being divinized in Christ. This is the gift he gave us through his death and resurrection.
Too many believe that our mission is to get to Heaven and avoid Hell. No, we are being led to a destiny beyond our imagination with is the culmination of the fullness of humanity. This is the path that begins at the baptism. If we focus just on not sinning so that we can get to Heaven, we miss the whole point of Christianity and unfortunately, that is taught in too many Catholic circles.
No, we have a calling to allow ourselves to be transformed in Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit made possible by the death and resurrection of the Cross. The doorway to all of that is the Baptism of the Lord and the doorway to our own mission in Christ is the Baptism of the Lord.
Fr. Robert J Carr is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA
The parish podcast is at CatholicAudioMedia.com
The newest edition of Fr Robert J Carr's latest book is now available. Christ in Our Humanity. You can find it here.