December 16th

The Baptism of Jesus

The traditional (official) end of the Christmas season and the transition back into Jesus's teaching and miracles from the long interlude dealing with His birth. We take time out of the year to think about how mad it is that Jesus came here at all and remember that He will be coming back. Or at least that's how I've seen Advent and Christmas.

I meant to write about how this next step in a faith journey is the formal acknowledgement - in Church, yes. Like my friend Dan is doing, taking steps and making a journey - going out of your way - to publicly declare your religious beliefs. The addition of these mysteries to the rosary certainly show the importance of doing that in our world - and doing it for the right reasons.

I think about how religious rhetoric is used like another political tool in this country. Can you imagine any earthly rivals for power insisting on the other prophet's prominence? John kneeling before his cousin, with whom he presumably grew up, and declaring as he did even within the womb what he was born to declare: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

I usually think here about how even Jesus - surely above any of these ceremonies - submitted Himself to the forms and outward shows of baptism. Ceremony and ritual does matter. He was initiating Himself into the human process of seeking God through the flawed method of religion. He joined a religion to save it from its own foolishness.

And honestly, with the spectacular results of the Baptism, it's really fairly surprising that only two of John's followers peeled off and went home with Jesus. Perhaps it's even more surprising that, in last week's gospel, John later had to ask. For all Father Rolo pointed out that John was imprisoned almost immediately after the Baptism and did not witness the preaching and works of Jesus or maybe even hear much about them, John the Baptist knew Jesus even in the womb. And then He saw the face of God in the face of a man he had every reason to see as just that - a man - without the slightest help of any sign. And then, after the Baptism, God spoke from the heavens and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove came down to rest on Jesus's shoulders.

After that, doubting just seems silly.

I'd like to make three days in a row saying that this is something that, older now, I understand better, but it's actually just tonight I've sat down to puzzle any of this out (and I haven't spent all night at it either, so forgive me if this is rough).

There are moments in a faith journey where believing isn't hard. I said to myself for a good while a few years back that I felt I had been blessed with the gift of certainty. My faith has always been rock solid, and I thank my upbringing for that but also God revealing Himself to me so early in life.

But you begin to doubt your purpose all the same. Because once the moment is gone, all those things you seemed so sure of start to sound silly. Perhaps too many people asked John to describe how he knew about Jesus or retell the story. That's almost always been where it falls down for me. All the words sound silly - especially because I don't quite have the courage to use the good ones.

Or it was just a dark and terrible place in the prison of Herod. Or John began to doubt because Jesus did not come for him and take him out of there.

When moments of such shocking certainty come, when God speaks from the heavens and descends with the Holy Spirit, we have to hold fast to those moments. We have to remember when times grow dark and the light refuses to shine with that clarity. When we step away from the situation, we have to remember the lessons we learned and own them.

Even the Voice Crying in the Wilderness began to doubt, when certainty and the ability to recognize Jesus for the Son of God He is was John's entire life, an ability he had from the womb.

We have to hold on to that certainty, because it is a gift but not an omnipresent one unless we hold to our faith and our surety. The Gift of Fortitude is perhaps a better name for that gift in its proper form, because we all have moments of revelation and we all, down not so deep, recognize truth and right from wrong much more than we'd like to pretend. We know, we feel in our soul, when we should do more, be more, believe more. The difference is having the strength of will and courage of our convictions to act on that certainty - every time. Even in Herod's prison.

We must continue to believe, hold on to our certainty. We must love God even in our darkest hour. Even in our greatest doubt, we must remember how He spoke and how He touched us with His Spirit. How surely we knew that He was the Son of God.