For the past few weeks we have experienced an intense participation in the excitement of the celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. After weeks of spiritual preparation in Advent, we became very still and silent, and in the cold, dark watches of the night, we recalled the birth some 2000 years ago, of the person who changed the course of human history forever.
With the path on which mankind was heading, and the darkened condition of the environment in which he was travelling – there would have been no chance of mankind ever reaching reconciliation with God, and the chance to bask in the light of spiritual day – not only in this life but also in the next.
And so, in a marvelously conceived plan, a part of God became fully man and fully God at the same time: and his name was Jesus. Jesus had to be both God and man in order to transform man in his entirety from a slave to concupiscences – the result of the Original Sin of mistrust and disobedience to God – to a free person, with his sin forgiven and the possibility of eternal life forever with God a reality! This astounding marriage between mankind and God in Jesus is what we celebrated recently in the Advent and Christmas Seasons! Now, imagining that he is already grown and mature, becoming the perfect man, it is time to move to the time of Jesus’ public life!
After spending his formative years with Mary and Joseph at Nazareth – being trustful and obedient to them – a remarkable act of humility and submission for one who was the majestic God – Jesus, at the age of 30 knew that it was time to do what he had come to do: to redeem the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, by a life of preaching, teaching, healing and then by demonstrating the utter depth of his love by accomplishing our salvation the only way it could have been accomplished: by his voluntary, free and o so loving death upon the cross!
And so, to officially inaugurate his “hour,” Jesus presented himself to a man named John who was baptizing people with water, in the Jordan River, as they repented of their sins – as a way to prepare themselves for the arrival of the Messiah – which, from all scriptural calculations was an event close at hand.
And what happened on that occasion was something amazing.
Everything that Jesus experienced as a human being, he experienced in order to transform and redeem that human experience. On this occasion rather than being consecrated by the water in the Jordan, Jesus consecrated the water itself. Thus, in being baptized, he gave an example for all who would follow him – they too would be baptized by consecrated water for the real remission of their sins - all of this being validated, because at the end of his public life Jesus would die a brutal death to make it effective.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he was embraced by the loving arms of his mother; on this day of his spiritual birth as a man (for us, not for himself) his Father in heaven embraces him with his voice when he says: This is my beloved Son. Listen to him! Mary held her child for the Magi to adore; the Father revealed that his Son is to be worshipped by all the nations! And it is up to us to listen to Jesus, and to worship him and to do all we can to see that the whole world in fact does adore him, and his Father and the Spirit who gave him life, and who gives us life!
Today we thank God that the prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled – he has come: the Light of the Nations, the one who is to open the eyes of the spiritually blind, to bring out of confinement those imprisoned by chains of slavery to sin, and to release into the brilliant Light of a New Day those who were trapped and stumbling in great darkness!
How magnificent this life of Christ – this life of our brother – this life of our savior! May we accept the peace which he offers to us and to all – as we commit ourselves to listening to him as he speaks throughout the weeks and months of the coming Liturgical Year. Absolutely everything that he has to say by word or deed is for us! We need only ask the help of the Spirit – already given us for this very purpose – to learn it, to understand it and to put it into practice!
God’s Spirit and God’s peace be with us all!
No comments:
Post a Comment