ENDING AND BEGINNING

 This weekend marks the end of our Christmas Season for this year. The stories of Jesus’ birth are finished. Now we move on to the adult Jesus. He begins his public life by being baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus is now ready to proclaim the good news for which he was born into our world.

Today’s feast reveals to us that Jesus isn’t waiting for the world to come to him, but rather he is going out to the world. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus travels all over so that he may “open the eyes of the blind, ...bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon those who live in darkness.”

The feast of the Baptism of the Lord also reminds us that Jesus’ work did not end with him. He then sent out the apostles and disciples so that the world may continue to know the Good News that he brought into the world.

This feast also recalls for us our own baptism that occurred for most of us at the beginning of our life. Now we are being sent into our world with the Good News of Jesus. We too are God’s children entrusted with the valuable message of the Gospel.

Baptism is not just about initiation and belonging. It is also about being endowed with the responsibility to bear witness to God’s love in the world.