A key to understanding and appreciating the core sacrament in the Christian tradition is to realize that Jesus accepted the central ritual tradition s of his own Jewish people and gave them a new meaning and a profoundly deeper reality.
The more obvious one was when he used the Passover feast to give his disciples the gift of his body and blood and he continues that gift for us in the transformed Passover which we call the eucharist or the Mass.
In his time also, a common ritual for expressing sorrow for sin and conversion to God was to be immersed in the waters of the Jordan. To be baptized meant simply to be immersed. However, when Jesus sent the disciples to preach to all nations and to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he was empowering them to do much more. They were enabled to bring all who were baptized into the familial, personal relationship with God which we call grace.
Obviously, this was not what happened when Jesus was baptized by John. Jesus did not need conversion as he already and always shared fully in the divine nature with the Father and the Spirit. What happened at the Jordan in the that day was that Jesus identified with the human race of which we truly a member and undertook to take our sins away by commitment to Father's will. The veil on his divinity was lifted briefly and his role as beloved Son was glimpse as the Spirit was revealed in a new in a person of Jesus. This is our faith.
Today is a reminder tht by our baptism we are privileged children of the father, touched by the Spirit, who are always in need of continuing conversion through the power and the love of God.
The more obvious one was when he used the Passover feast to give his disciples the gift of his body and blood and he continues that gift for us in the transformed Passover which we call the eucharist or the Mass.
In his time also, a common ritual for expressing sorrow for sin and conversion to God was to be immersed in the waters of the Jordan. To be baptized meant simply to be immersed. However, when Jesus sent the disciples to preach to all nations and to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he was empowering them to do much more. They were enabled to bring all who were baptized into the familial, personal relationship with God which we call grace.
Obviously, this was not what happened when Jesus was baptized by John. Jesus did not need conversion as he already and always shared fully in the divine nature with the Father and the Spirit. What happened at the Jordan in the that day was that Jesus identified with the human race of which we truly a member and undertook to take our sins away by commitment to Father's will. The veil on his divinity was lifted briefly and his role as beloved Son was glimpse as the Spirit was revealed in a new in a person of Jesus. This is our faith.
Today is a reminder tht by our baptism we are privileged children of the father, touched by the Spirit, who are always in need of continuing conversion through the power and the love of God.
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