Topical Sermon Preparation | Baptism

John the Baptist’s witness

In our Gospel John the evangelist tells of the witness that JB gave to Jesus.

He tells us that:

He is the one who will take away the sins of the world.

JB tells us that Jesus is far greater then he is because He existed before him. He is hinting at His divinity. He himself was sent to reveal Jesus.

He knows Jesus is the anointed one of God because He saw the Spirit come down on Him.

Finally he tells us that Jesus is the one, who, unlike John will Baptise with the Holy Spirit.

In our first reading from Isaiah we are told by the prophet that Jesus, the suffering servant of God, has come for the salvation of all. “It is not enough...”

He has come to take away the sin of the world, which He does through His passion, death, resurrection and ascension. He takes away that sin in each one of us by giving us the fruits of His sacrifice through Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

As St Paul tells us, each one of us was chosen before time began, before we ever existed. Then looking upon us in love God brought us into being for His own kind purposes. This was an act of His sovereign freedom.

In Baptism He has called us by name, redeemed us from the power of Satan whom we belonged to because of Original sin, and justified and sanctified us.

He has done this by Baptizing us into His Son, into His Mystical Body, the church, into the New Covenant.

For Jesus as the perfect union of God and man, made perfect though His Paschal sacrifice, is the New Covenant.

He has filled us with the gift of His own Spirit, the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of that new life of the God/man Jesus, given to us as members of His Body through Baptism. Through this new life, because it is human and divine, the Holy spirit transforms us into Divine Persons. We participate in the nature of God Himself.

Finally, in doing all of this God the Father has adopted each of us as His own children, heirs to His kingdom. He has made us his own sons and daughters, loved with that unique depth of love that only God the Father could show.

Our life in Christ , that began in Baptism, which is our real life now, here at this moment, will reach its final fulfilment in that sovereign act of judgement by God at the end of our lives. Through this judgment God receives each of us, His creatures, and now His children, out of time and into His eternity where He will glorify each of us

Now this judgement is carried out by Jesus, the Word of the Father. It will embrace, as we have been warned, our every thought word and deed. It is though a judgement made against the backdrop of the merciful love of God for each of us as His children. If, at the end of our lives, we are not ready to enter into God’s eternity, into the union of love of the Three Persons of the Trinity, then our pilgrimage to the glory God intends for us, which began in Baptism, will continue in Purgatory until we are ready.

For God the Father intends to glorify the Mystical Body of His Son and each of us as members of it, with His own infinite glory as God. He intends to take us into His eternity.

This is utterly extraordinary when you think about it, but what Father would not do this for his child if he could?

We must realise that all this is an exercise of God’s sovereign freedom. For us it is utterly undeserved grace. As such we, as Isaiah and Jeremiah tell us, are like clay in the potter’s hands. The clay does not tell the potter how to shape it or into what it will be made.

Our final fulfilment in God we cannot see. We only know the outline, as St John tells us,” we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He really is”.

This shape the potter is giving us has been further revealed to us in Jesus, the Word of the Father and His perfect self-expression. We are being transformed by the Holy Spirit into Jesus, if we cooperate with Him. Personal details beyond this because each one of us is destined to be Christ in a unique and personal way is unknown to us now.

This is why we practice our faith because this is how we cooperate with the potter. We don’t embrace the gift of our making on our terms but His. It belongs to our freedom, as His image, to accept or reject His choice, but it is His right and His choice to shape us as He chooses because His is a truly sovereign freedom.

We have all heard this many times, or should have, but it should never become just an ordinary truth for us, like the sun rising in the morning. That God has created me in love, redeemed and sanctified me in Jesus through His Spirit, as a perfectly free act of love for me, and His utterly extraordinary intentions for me as my loving Father and Saviour should never cease to astound me.

Let us turn to Mary our Mother. From the Annunciation on, if not before, she was aware of the staggering truth of what God intended for her, which was a truth ever new to her because the love of God for her, that was revealed in her life was forever new and often unexpected. Let’s ask her to help us to appreciate and trust the love of God the Father for me that is revealed to me in Jesus Christ.