Baptism Of The Lord (Ages 3-6): At Baptism, What Do We Feel And See And Hear?
- thebetterpart
- Jan 7
- 3 min read
This Sunday is the last of the three Sundays celebrating the feast of Christmas—the feast of Jesus, the Great Light, coming into the world. In the Gospel readings for the first two Sundays of Christmas, Jesus is just a baby, but in the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus is a grown-up man. He comes to get baptized in the river Jordan.
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.
Who is this John person? He is a person who baptizes people who want to feel close to God. We call him John-the-Baptist. He says, "Prepare the way of the Lord!" We know who the Lord is.
John-the-Baptist does not baptize in a church the way it happens today. Instead, he stands in the Jordan river and people wade out to him. He plunges them under the water and then they stand up again—baptized!
Jesus wants John-the-Baptist to baptize him. When Jesus wades into the river, John-the-Baptist sees him coming and feels concerned. Why should Jesus need to get baptized? He is the Lord! He does not need to prepare the way of himself! But Jesus wants it this way. So John agrees to baptize Jesus in the river.
And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
What does Jesus feel when he gets baptized? He feels the water running off his body. And then he feels something land on him.
What does Jesus see? He looks up and sees the heavens open. It must be so bright.
What else does Jesus see? He sees the Spirit of God coming down like a dove. A dove is a white bird.
Is the Holy Spirit a bird?? St. Matthew tells us the Spirit comes down like a dove. A dove is beautiful and does not hurt anybody. When people think of doves, they think of peace.
What does Jesus hear?
a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Whose voice is that? Of course! It is God the Father's voice.
What does a voice do? It speaks words. God's voice speaks the Word. God speaks Jesus into the world. Now everyone listening knows who he is.
The voice says that Jesus is the Beloved. That means God loves Jesus. God loves so strongly—so abundantly—that Jesus can actually see God's love! That beautiful, peaceful thing that comes down and lands on Jesus like a dove, could that be the love of God? Could the Spirit of God be love???
Jesus gets baptized when he is a grown man. Most of us get baptized when we are babies. We cannot remember our baptism. We wish we could. Maybe the Gospel can help us know something about our baptism.
What did we feel? We felt the water dripping off of our head.
What did we see? We looked up and saw a bright light because they lit a candle from the biggest candle, the Pascal candle, the Easter candle. We wonder if we also saw the love of God coming down upon us like a dove... Perhaps only we could see it. For us alone.
What did we hear? At our baptism, the priest or deacon spoke special words while pouring the water over our head: "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." We got baptized into all of God.
But that is not the first thing the priest or deacon said.
The first word we heard is one we know very well.
The first word we heard is one we know better than any word.
The first word we heard is our name.
The priest or deacon called us by name. Our ears heard the priest or deacon's voice. But we have to wonder, whose voice did we hear deep down in our heart? Who calls by name?
He calls his own sheep by name (John 10:3b)
The Good Shepherd! The Good Shepherd calls by name! Could it be that at our baptism—deep down inside of us—we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd calling our name? Did we hear the voice of God speaking us into the world?
And as they held us up so that all who gathered could see us, we wonder if all the people could hear—deep down in their hearts—the voice of God saying, "This is my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Perhaps they did, so that everyone listening now knows who we are.
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