Baptism of the Lord

Sunday was the feast day of the Baptism of the Lord, if you are following the liturgical calendar. Kind of interesting, in a way, since we just finished Christmas, and all of a sudden here we have the adult Jesus getting baptized by John the Baptist.

But if you think about it, it fits. After all, Christmas and Epiphany are about the Incarnation...about God coming into the world in human form and making himself known to us through Jesus. So it makes sense that as we continue in the year after Christmas is over, we look at the Gospel as it relates to God becoming more known to people.

In fact, all the readings for Sunday show that theme. (You should be able to follow the links to go read them if you want. It's really long to post all the text here.)

Isaiah 42: 1-7

Psalm 29: 1-4, 9-10

Acts 10:34-38

Matthew 3: 13-17

The passage from Isaiah is talking about the Lord's chosen servant, and you can see the "pre-echoes" in the passage as they relate to Jesus and his message that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." The passage from Psalms is really a great response to Isaiah, as it says "ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name." First we hear about God's plans to rescue his people, then the sung response is to give God the glory for it. Then the reading from Acts continues with Peter preaching to Cornelius and his household the good news that salvation is now available to the entire world through Jesus. Then the gospel reading finishes the set with the narrative of Jesus' baptism by John, inaugurating his public ministry of preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God.

How neat! It's like a mini-Gospel story all packed into 4 readings. The gospel is there...just not in the same package of readings that we might typically expect to hear.