EPIPHANY NOT ENDED

Solemnity of the Lord’s Baptism
Mk 1:7-11

We celebrated yesterday the Solemnity of the Lord’s Epiphany. God manifested Himself to all nations. In and through today’s Solemnity of the Lord’s Baptism, He continues introducing Himself to humankind. The Solemnity of the Lord’s Baptism forms a very essential component of the Lord’s epiphany.

God reveals that Jesus Christ is His Beloved Son. Referring to Jesus, His voice is heard: “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on You.” Nothing can be clearer a claim that Jesus is the Son of God than God Himself saying so.

In asserting the Jesus Christ is His Beloved Son, God announces that the Messianic promises (cf. Is 61:1ff) are beginning to be fulfilled in and through Jesus Christ. Later on, Jesus Himself will make this claim in His hometown synagogue (cf. Lk 4:18-19). Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and the inauguration of the New. In Him, with Him, and through Him, the Kingdom of God breaks upon humankind. Jesus, Himself, is the Messiah, the Christ.

At the Lord’s Baptism in the Jordan, God further reveals that while He is one, there are actually three Persons in Him. When the Son is baptized, the Father’s voice is heard and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the likeness of a dove. This is the first revelation of the Most Holy Trinity in the New Testament. This divine manifestation is like a statement on the economy of salvation: the Father sends the Son who, in obedience to the will of the Father, achieves the work of redemption in, with, and through the Holy Spirit.

The Lord’s baptism is a continuation of the Lord’s epiphany. But the Lord’s baptism does not conclude the Lord’s epiphany. Today, the Lord continues revealing Himself to us. I do not mean that He makes new revelations – Jesus Christ is the final and definitive revelation of God; after Jesus and besides Jesus, there are no more revelations to come – but that in and through us, baptized in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, God is likewise manifested to the world. By way of identification and participation with Jesus, the Beloved Son of the Father, we continue the epiphany of God. This is our privilege and our mission.