My brothers and sisters in Christ, we celebrate the great feast of the
Baptism of the Lord which closes the Christmas season. Tomorrow the decorations
for Christmas will be removed and we go back to ordinary time. Last Sunday
we celebrated the journey of the three kings coming on their knees before
the Lord and bringing Him their gifts and proclaiming Christ Jesus the
Lord of all the nations, of every soul, of every time and place. And now
thirty years have past and our Lord goes out into the desert, He goes into
the terrible desert around the Jordan river and there at the hands of
Saint John the Baptist he is baptized, and He receives a baptism of repentance,
a baptism of the forgiveness of sins, the acknowledgment of sins. And we
wonder "Lord, why did You receive this baptism? You are sinless, You are
the sinless one from all eternity. Why did you receive a baptism of repentance?"
And then you and I, it dawns on us and we know. Our Lord receives that
baptism not for the forgiveness of His sins, but the forgiveness of our
own. The Lord descends into the water, and in a sense, He is buried by
the waters and He rises up again, and from that very moment every word
of our Lord, every action, every miracle points to the cross of our Lord.
The burial of our Lord in the waters of the Jordan river point to the crucifixion
and the burial of our Lord.
And so our Lord’s baptism and everything in between His baptism and
burial is a reminder that Christ comes to wash away our sins and the baptism
of the Church that is establish, a baptism of the Holy Spirit in a fire
as Saint John speaks of it, you and I receive that with the greatest joy
because you and I , we have received a baptism by which we receive the
grace of the Holy Spirit, by which the sins of our first parents are burnt
away.
And so on this feast of the baptism of the Lord we ask: "Why are we
baptized? Why is the Sacrament of Baptism so important?" In the letter
to the Romans, in the sixth chapter Saint Paul says this: "Do you not know
that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus? We’re baptized into
His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so
that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might live a new life." Like Christ, when we are baptized, we are
buried in a sense in the waters of baptism, and what rises from the waters
of baptism is a new man, is a new woman, is an immortal creature of God
inheriting the life of grace and the Sacraments by which we are saved.
I was talking to a young man yesterday, very young man, and he was
telling me that he doesn’t believe in God anymore. He says he sees no reason
to believe in Him, there is nothing to indicate that He exists, and he
says mankind is not the noblest of creatures, mankind is worse than the
animals he says. He said "I have three cats and they don’t murder, they
don’t kill, they don’t steal, they don’t lie" , and so he said, "my cats
are more noble creatures than mankind is". And you know what? If we did
not believe in the Good God, and if we did not believe in the Sacrament
of Baptism, you know he might be half right. Because we are animals that
kill, but we are creatures of God who have been redeemed by Christ and
who have been given immortal life through the cross of Christ and the baptism
of the Church by which we receive this great grace. We are infinitely above
the animals because we have an immortal soul worth redemption by the death
of God, and we will live for ever, you and I. And our baptism is a seal
as new sons and daughters of God whom the angels serve with the greatest
love and devotion. We are far different than the animals, not lower, but
infinitely greater and immortal thanks be to God.
Holy baptism is the bases of the whole Christian life, the gateway
to life in the spirit. Through baptism we are freed from sin and reborn
as sons of God, we become members of Christ and are incorporated into the
Church and made sharers in her mission. That is what the Catechism of the
Church says about baptism. Through baptism, freed from sin, we become sons
and daughters of God. We forget the majesty, the dignity of that title:
"You are sons and daughters of God!" Because of the baptism that you have
received; not because of what you have done, but because of what you have
received. And we are made sharers in God’s work through the Church in the
saving of souls.
So baptism accomplishes three great things in us. The Catechism says:
"Through the Holy Spirit baptism purifies, justifies and sanctifies." And
I would like to just explain that before I close.
In baptism we receive three great gifts, of purification, of justification
and sanctification. What does that mean? When we are baptized we are purified,
we are made clean. What are we purified from? The two words we all know
them, what are they? Original sin, exactly. We are since freed, purified
through the grace of Christ won for us on the cross, His death and resurrection,
the sin of our first parents that closed the gates of heaven to all mankind;
that sin is purified and we are made whole. And if we receive baptism as
adults as adults, baptism also forgives all actual sin, all sins that we
have committed and all punishment due to that sin; so great is the power
of baptism to purify our souls and introduce us into the life of God’s
grace.
Secondly, by our baptism we are justified. We don’t hear this word
often enough. We need to know what it means; we are justified, we are set
free from our sins. Not by our own works, not by our own merits, not by
what we have done; we are justified, we are made right in God’s eyes through
the cross and resurrection of Jesus our Lord. That is our hope, not what
we do, not all of our works which are so important, but our hope is in
Christ our Lord. We are justified, we are given the righteousness of God
through baptism, through faith in Jesus Christ.
Through baptism we are given sanctifying grace. Remember that word?
Grace which is the life of God, the salvation of God that is given to us
for our salvation.
This is what Saint Athanasius over fifteen hundred years ago said about
justification: "God gave himself to us through His Spirit by the participation
of the Spirit we become communicants in the Divine Nature. For this reason,
those in whom the Spirit dwells through baptism are divinized." That is
a remarkable thing to say; those in whom, through baptism, the Holy Spirit
dwells we are divinized, we share in the nature of God. Its a remarkable
word. There is no higher dignity that we could be given than the grace
of being sharers in the life of God. Saint Athanasius says "we are divinized",
remarkable word.
And then thirdly by baptism we are sanctified.
The work of grace that is given to us in baptism bears the fruit of
conversion. Our minds, our hearts are set from going away from God toward
God. And the whole Catholic life is a participation in the Grace given
us through baptism.
Justification detaches us from sin, it heals us from sin and when we
cooperate with this grace of God we grow in freedom. The only true slaves
that exist in our world are those who deny God or ignore God. When we cooperate
with God and the justification won through His cross we are made holy and
we are made free. And that is the whole purpose of the Catholic life. The
growing freedom to cooperate with this grace given us, the justification
we have received through baptism.
And so is no wonder the Catechism says: "Baptism is necessary for salvation."
And now you might be thinking " what about all the Buddhists who were never
baptized, what about all of the Muslims, what about them?" If they must
be baptized to be saved, do they all go to hell? This is what the Catechism
says: "Baptism is necessary for salvation. Jesus also commands His disciples
to proclaim the gospel to all nations and to baptize them" and this is
where we often fail, in evangelizing others; it goes on: "Baptism is necessary
for salvation for those to whom the gospel has been proclaimed and who
have had the possibility of asking for this Sacrament", so there are countless
billions of people who have never really received the full opportunity
to ask for the baptism of our Lord. What happens to those people? If they
live the faith that they have been given, if they seek to know and love
God as they have been taught they will receive the reward of heaven. Those
who hear of Christ, and who reject baptism, there is for them no possibility
of salvation. That is what the Catechism would say about the billions of
souls who are unbaptized in the world this day.
What about children who die before their baptism? This is what the
Catechism says: "As regards children who have died without baptism, the
Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral
rights for them. Indeed the great mercy of God who desires that all men
should be saved and Jesus’ tenderness toward children allow us to hope
that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism.
All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children
coming to Christ through the gift of holy baptism."
My brothers and sisters in Christ, as we kneel before the altar in
the Mass this day, let us give thanks to God, let us praise Him for this
powerful life of God’s grace into which we’ve been initiated through our
own baptism. Let us always seek to cooperate with this grace. To turn our
minds and hearts towards God who have saved us in Christ. Our baptism is
our hope and the Sacrament we receive today is our joy and our sure guide
to eternal life.
