Friends, we are all going to die, and nothing can stop that. For some, death will come early; for others, death will come late. But make no mistake: we are all going to die. But, if we have already died with Christ in Holy Baptism, then the death of our bodies is not the end of our lives because we have already been born again by water and the Holy Spirit and are destined to receive a glorified body on the Last Day and to share the glory of God the Son world without end.
The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord is the end of the liturgical season of Christmas because it separates the thirty years of the hidden life of Christ from the three years of his public ministry, and today the Church recalls with great joy the Baptism of the Lord Jesus in the waters of the Jordan by his kinsman John, who preached a Baptism of repentance and prepared the way of the Lord.
The Lord Jesus, of course, was without sin and had no need of repentance, so his Baptism by John was not the sign of a change being worked in Jesus. Rather, the Baptism of Jesus was the sign of a change being worked in Baptism itself.
Jesus changed the baptism of John from a ritual washing of the Old Covenant into the first sacrament of the New Covenant, and then forty days after his Resurrection as he ascended to his Father, the Risen Lord Jesus commanded his Church to preach his Gospel to all nations and to baptize all those who receive him with saving faith, something the Church has now been doing for two thousand years.
The sacrament of Holy Baptism is the door through which one enters the Church, and it is the gateway to the life of grace in which we receive the supernatural gifts and theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.
Our second lesson today was also the second reading on Christmas Eve at Mass during the Night, and so this one text of Holy Scripture is proclaimed at the beginning and end of Christmastide. These words are taken from the Letter of Saint Paul to Titus, and they speak of the central place of Holy Baptism in the salvation of the human race and the life of grace for all Christians.
Titus was a Gentile convert to Christ who became a trusted colleague of the Apostle Paul. Titus was also a gifted preacher of the Gospel and served as Paul’s private secretary and sometime ghost writer. Titus was most likely born on the island of Crete, and he was eventually sent back to Crete by Saint Paul to found the Church there and serve as its first bishop. Some time later, Paul wrote a letter to Titus to encourage him in his work as a new bishop, and it is from that letter that our second lesson is taken both today and on Christmas Eve.
Saint Paul wrote to Titus: “For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.” (Titus 2:11-14)
In these three verses, Paul has summarized the meaning, the purpose, and the result of the entire Paschal Mystery: God became a man in the womb of a virgin, died upon a cross, and rose from the dead to restore a broken world, to ransom us from slavery to sin and the grave, and to give us the evangelical freedom of the children of God in order to prepare us to share his divine glory forever.
Here we must note that the sober, upright, and godly life to which Paul exhorts us is made possible for us not by our own strength but only by the grace of God, and that grace is ordinarily given to us in the sacraments of the Church, beginning with Holy Baptism. And so Saint Paul continues with his instruction to Bishop Titus:
“When the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done, but because of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.”
So, through Baptism or the bath of rebirth we are made new by the Holy Spirit who is poured into us to justify us by grace and make us heirs in Christ Jesus to the hope of eternal life. And that is why Holy Baptism is so essential to the Gospel of salvation and to all of Christian faith and life.
Following the words of Christ himself, we speak of Baptism as the sacrament in which we are born again. But for the baptismal font to be a womb of second birth, it must first be a tomb. The child of wrath must die with Christ in the baptismal waters, and only then can the child of God be born again by water and the Holy Spirit to live the life of the new creation through faith, hope, and love.
This means, among other things, that Holy Baptism is not a social ritual to welcome a new member to the family or merely a symbol of our hope for a child to live a good life as a Church member. No, by our Baptism we are personally called by name to follow the Lord Jesus in the Way of the Cross and individually equipped by the Holy Spirit with the gifts of grace necessary to answer that call.
But for our Baptism to have its full intended effects in our lives, we must receive the Gospel in the obedience of faith and live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. And that is why the Church may never baptize a child without a founded hope that she will be instructed in the Gospel as she grows and be taught to receive the Word of God with saving faith in Jesus Christ.
And the only foundation for such a hope is evidence that the parents and godparents have themselves received the Gospel of Christ Jesus in the obedience of faith and are already following him in the Way of the Cross. And what would that evidence look like?
Well, the full version would be this: Mass every Sunday; prayer every day; confession of sins whenever needed, at least once each year and better once each month; and regular study of Holy Scripture as the foundation for a life of mature discipleship. It would also include service of those in need for the sake of Christ; marriage only in the Church, abstinence until marriage, and openness to new life within marriage.
The Christian life requires us not to lie, cheat, or steal; to treat other persons with respect no matter their station in life; and to proclaim the Gospel always and everywhere by our words and our deeds. These are the means given to us by the Lord Jesus to live the life of the new creation through the grace of our Baptism.
Christians should seek throughout our lives to understand deeply and live fully the grace of our Baptism, and since most of us were baptized as babies, this means that we need to know what happened that day by first knowing when and where we baptized, by whom we were baptized, and who stood for us as godparents or sponsors in Baptism. Then we begin the lifelong task of dying to self and living for God in Christ Jesus as his faithful disciples and friends who with true reverence read the Word of God and receive the sacraments of the New Covenant, especially the Holy Eucharist.
But if Holy Baptism is both the sacrament of second birth by which we become a new creation in Christ and the gift of enlightenment by which we receive the grace to believe in Christ and accept his Gospel in the obedience of faith, then why do so many baptized persons cease to follow the Lord Jesus in the Way of the Cross and abandon their faith?
There are many reasons for such apostasy or falling away from Christ. But Saint John the Evangelist gives us the most important one in his first letter: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away and the lust thereof, but he who does the will of God abides for ever.” (1 John 2:15-17)
At the end of the day, unbelief comes primarily from rebellion against God’s eternal plan for our lives and from the hardness of our hearts, and not from the many excuses usually offered to justify infidelity. You see, Christians do not so much lose their faith as throw it away or at least put it down like a heavy burden. Many of the baptized walk away from the Lord Jesus because they will not walk the Way of the Cross, and the reasons they may give for doing this are seldom the real reasons, whether they themselves know it or not.
But please note that in telling us to reject the love of the world, Saint John the Beloved Disciple is not telling us to despise the goodness of God’s creation. He is, rather, insisting only that Christians must be separate from that part of creation which is in rebellion against the creator.
And the strength to resist that rebellion, a rebellion which we are all tempted to join, comes only from the grace of God first given to us in Holy Baptism. So let us resolve to live the grace of our Baptism, and in so doing we can help those who have walked away from Christ and his Church to find their way back to the Way of the Cross and live once again in the freedom of the children of God.
When the Savior was baptized by John, the Holy Spirit came upon him as an anointing by which the Lord Jesus was revealed as the Christ, meaning the Anointed One. And at both our Baptism and our Confirmation we too were anointed with the sacred Chrism which signifies the Holy Spirit and configures us more perfectly to the crucified and Risen Christ.
Friends, on this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and the end of Christmastide, we rejoice that by the bath of rebirth and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Christians receive the gifts of grace needed to live upright, sober, and godly lives in this world as we await the return in glory of our God and Savior: the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the text of my homily for 12 January 2025, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
Fr Jay Scott Newman