NOTES for Mat 3:13-17

The episode of Jesus receiving baptism looks almost like an appendage to the story of John the Baptist, and this emphasizes the outward inconspicuousness of what is being described. It is not hard for us to imagine how many people gathered that day on the bank of the Jordan, but very few among those gathered were able to understand what great event they had witnessed. Yet in this too Jesus' self-emptying was revealed, something the disciples found so hard to comprehend and that remains mysterious for us as well.

Mysterious too are the words Jesus spoke in response to John's hesitation. What was that righteousness that "we," that is, the two of them meeting at the Jordan, had to fulfill? Why did the sinless Jesus have to enter the waters that washed away sins? Of course, in order to take upon Himself the sins of others, and not only the sins of those Jewish people long ago, but the sins of all of us. Yet one cannot escape the feeling that behind Christ's answer there is something more, something that slips past a superficial glance but that the evangelist considered important to convey to us.

What we are meant to see in the depths of Scripture the Lord will reveal to us, for He does not hide what is necessary for salvation and a full spiritual life. John was the first to whom it was revealed that the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus at His baptism. Through John's eyes the evangelist lets us see this too, and we believe: union with Jesus is union with the Spirit of God. And this most important revelation was given to all of us on the day when Jesus came inconspicuously to the bank of the Jordan.