Today we celebrate the baptism of the Lord. This is the beginning of what will become the action of God’s will in the New Testament world. Let us look at what happens.

John offered a baptism of repentance. In this, John, the last prophet of the Old Testament times, calls people to live their faith according to the Jewish law more closely. He calls all people—those who felt incorrectly that they were outside of God’s love and those who felt also incorrectly that they had a special “in” with God—to come to return to the faith, live the law.

Jesus, whom John proclaimed, comes to be baptized. He comes as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, the fulfillment of what John’s baptism represented. In his baptism, He changes it to be not a change in behavior, but a change in being. Jesus introduces into what becomes the rite of Baptism an ontological change among his followers.

This means that baptism is not just a sign that we will commit ourselves to Christ, it is an ontological change in which we become reborn anew. What happens is that we literally die to the world which is the secular reality that chooses not to be part of the Kingdom of God. We die to that and we rise within the Kingdom of God. We go from being estranged from God to being His adopted children.

This is more than just a change a behavior. It is a change a being. This means that you and I are not like everyone else, but have a special dignity in the Kingdom of God. Our role becomes, as Jesus shows, to enter the enterprise of the salvation of souls. This means baptism is not simply a door through which we are given a ticket to Heaven, it is a change of being through which we become co-heirs with Christ and enter into his mission for the salvation of the world. It is a completely different status.

There is a warning here: if you do not want to meet the Holy Spirit or the Devil, do not be Baptised. The Holy Spirit will lead you to places beyond what you expected and the Devil will do everything he can to destroy you and any role you have in the Kingdom. That is why baptism should never be taken lightly. It is a powerful sacrament that changes your being, your status and your role in the God’s Kingdom. It has been so since the day Jesus was baptized by John.

God bless you,

Fr. Robert J. Carr

Fr Carr is an alliance member of the New Song Community, the pastor at St. Benedict Parish in Somerville, MA and the editor of this blog.