For Sunday
Epiphany 1A
Collect
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting.
Amen.
Reading
From Matthew 3:13-17
“And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.”
Reflection
The Spirit descends like a dove and alights on him.
Generations have found kinship to Jesus through baptism. That we are baptized in faith and truth as he was. Even the little tussle in the story between Jesus and John, about who should baptize whom reveals the order of things.
It isn’t about who has more power. There isn’t a hierarcy. The older one doesn’t go first. Nor does the one with the greater standing. John is the baptizer. So he baptizes.
Even Jesus.
This sounds a bit like the saint/sinner paradox. Every saint is also a sinner. And likewise, there is saint in every sinner.
The baptizer must even baptize the Messiah.
The one who saves him, he must also save.
There is an internal logic to this, but I think we can appreciate how difficult this is to embody. Because we so often like to defer to those who are “better” than we are. We’ll say No, I’m not the one who is supposed to do this. You are more full of faith than I am!
Even when we know that’s not how it works, we’ll cop to that regardless.
Not me! You!
When the Spirit descends upon Jesus, looking like a dove, it alights on him. Lands upon him. It physically connects with him.
It reminds me of the touch of my parents’ hands upon my head, the bishop’s at my confirmation, and years later, at my ordination. The feel of this upon me: the weight and the love: both.
History, connection, family, church, denominations, all who came before, parents, siblings, saints, sinners, all that is and all that will be, activists, political figures, monastics, healers, prophets, teachers.
All of that weight descending upon me…and yet as light as a feather. The yoke and burden, heavy and light. But most importantly, shared.
The dove, upon the beloved, “This is my son.” Pleasing. And so do we, beloved. Arrive, receive, to be loved. Pleasing God.