Why did Jesus bother to be baptized?

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, January 9, 2011 | The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Isa. 42:1-4, 6-7
• Psa. 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10
• Acts 10:34-38
• Matt. 3:13-17

Growing up in a small Fundamentalist Bible chapel, I didn’t hear much about what baptism could or should actually do for me. On the contrary, I heard far more about what baptism couldn’t do: it couldn’t cleanse me of sin, make me right with God, or fill me with God’s grace. It was a classic example of a belief—or lack of a belief—being formed by a reaction against Catholic teaching. One thing we couldn’t abide was appearing even remotely susceptible to Romanism.

If baptism was of so little value to me, why did Jesus bother to be baptized? After all, He was sinless and it seems that His very public baptism would suggest that He was just as much a sinner in need of repentance as those coming from Jerusalem and the surrounding area, “confessing their sins” (Matt. 3:6). And, indeed, today’s Gospel readily acknowledges that John the Baptist was taken aback by his cousin’s request to be baptized: “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?”

Jesus’ response was rather cryptic: “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” It suggests that His baptism was part of God’s plan of salvation. Not because Jesus needed to be cleansed, but because His baptism points out our desperate need to be cleansed of sin, made whole, and filled with God’s life. As parents know, it is better to set an example by doing than by saying. And children are usually more likely to respect and respond to a lived example.

The Catechism provides some other reasons for Jesus being baptized. It inaugurated His public life and ministry, and in doing so revealed the Triune nature of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This in turn opened the door—the flood gates!—to an ever-deepening appreciation of how and why our heavenly Father works for the salvation of mankind. “This is my beloved Son,” states the Father, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the sacrament of baptism we too become sons and daughters of God. “The Christian must enter into this mystery of humble self-abasement and repentance,” explains the Catechism, “go down into the water with Jesus in order to rise with him, be reborn of water and the Spirit so as to become the Father's beloved son in the Son and ‘walk in newness of life’.” (CCC 537).

Baptism is not simply a symbolic action, but a supernatural transformation. Buried with Christ in baptism, we rise with Him and walk in the newness of life, having died to sin (cf., Rom. 6:1-12).

In his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI has an entire chapter on the baptism of Jesus. The key to understanding that mysterious event, the Holy Father states, is found in the meaning of the word righteousness. Jesus’ response to John’s reluctance expressed His understanding that His kinsman’s baptism was a necessary, public way of showing “an unrestricted Yes to God’s will.” But the meaning of the baptism would not be fully known or revealed until it could be “seen in the light of the Cross and Resurrection.”

In other words, by stepping into the Jordan, Jesus demonstrated He was taking the place of sinners, as well as anticipating His death on the Cross. This is, Benedict notes, one reason why Jesus referred to His approaching crucifixion as a baptism: “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!” (Lk. 12:50).

Jesus did not descend into the waters because He needed to, but because we needed Him to. And this reflects the incredible love revealed in the Incarnation. God did not have to become man for our sake, but He did in order that we who were blind and living in darkness, as the prophet Isaiah wrote, could be cleansed of sin, made right with God, and be filled with God’s grace. That’s what baptism will do for you.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the January 13, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

• The Feast of the Theophany and the baptism of the Lord (January 6, 2011)
• Are Catholics Born Again? | Mark Brumley

Comments

[TeaPot562]

Why did JP II give the "Baptism of the Lord" as the First Mystery of Light in the Five Luminous mysteries? Something to ponder. My take is that Jesus, as an adult human, is voluntarily uniting himself (though He himself was sinless) with sinful humanity.
This action has consequences. Do others have ideas about this?
TeaPot562

[Richard A]

To me, this is one of the mysteries of Protestantism, particularly of the fundamentalist variety. Jesus allowed Himself to be baptized so that no one could say it isn't necessary.

[Jon D]

When I was teaching a pre-catechism class some years ago, a student asked why Jesus had to be baptized. Like the author, I was raised in the Baptist church. I also got the explanation that it was for an example for us to follow him and that it was to mark the beginning of his public ministry. Those answers seemed weak to me and did not satisfy my students. I started searching in the Bible and catechetical literature for a detailed answer. I found a slightly different take reading the “Erecting of the Dwelling” in Exodus 40:

12 "Then bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the meeting tent, and there wash them with water. 13 Clothe Aaron with the sacred vestments and anoint him, thus consecrating him as my priest. 14 Bring forward his sons also, and clothe them with the tunics. 15 As you have anointed their father, anoint them also as my priests. Thus, by being anointed, they shall receive a perpetual priesthood throughout all future generations."

The same story is retold in more detail in Leviticus 8: 1-13. Being in Torah twice it is taken to mean “This is the way to install the High Priest.” After Israel came into the land, the washing became the mikveh, the ritual immersion for important rites, from which John drew his baptism. The mikveh was more than a bath of purification – it indicated a change in life.
Now, we point to Jesus as “the apostle and high priest of our confession” (Hebrews 3:1). Thus when Jesus tells John “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”, He is talking about more than baptism, but a distinct change in His direction. This is the beginning of His public ministry and the beginning of His path to His sacrifice of Himself as High Priest before God.

[Carl E. Olson]

Thanks, Jon. I touch on the same in my previous post, linked above, "The Feast of the Theophany and the baptism of the Lord". And, just for kicks, here is my "Opening the Word" column for today's edition of Our Sunday Visitor:

Was it fitting and necessary for Jesus to be baptized? It is an important question the answer says much about the person and mission of Jesus. It has, therefore, been taken up by theologians and Doctors of the Church over the centuries.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologica (see ST 3, 39, 1-8), listed a number of objections, including, “It would seem that it was not fitting for Christ to be baptized. For to be baptized is to be washed. But it was not fitting for Christ to be washed, since there was no uncleanness in Him. Therefore it seems unfitting for Christ to be baptized.” His answer draws upon both Scripture and the Church Fathers: “I answer that, It was fitting for Christ to be baptized. First, because, as Ambrose says on Luke 3:21: ‘Our Lord was baptized because He wished, not to be cleansed, but to cleanse the waters, that, being purified by the flesh of Christ that knew no sin, they might have the virtue of baptism’.”

He also quoted St. Gregory Nazianzen, who had written, “Christ was baptized that He might plunge the old Adam entirely in the water.” He further noted that Jesus, in being baptized, was setting an example for everyone who would follow him and take up the cross of discipleship. After all, if the sinless Son of God would willingly enter the waters of baptism, how much more urgent is it that we sinners are washed in the waters of regeneration?

There are other reasons given, including one implicit in the sermon of St. Peter to the first Gentile convert, Cornelius, heard in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles: “You know the word that [God] sent to the Israelites as he proclaimed peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all, what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.”

Here the emphasis is on the anointing; the Greek word is echrisen and the root word is chrió, from which comes the word “Christ”. And the title “Christ” is itself the Greek translation of the Hebrew word, “Messiah”, which means “anointed”. The Catechism explains that this is “the name proper to Jesus only because he accomplished perfectly the divine mission that ‘Christ’ signifies. In effect, in Israel those consecrated to God for a mission that he gave were anointed in his name. This was the case for kings, for priests and, in rare instances, for prophets. This had to be the case all the more so for the Messiah whom God would send to inaugurate his kingdom definitively” (par. 436). Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit and presented as uniquely fulfilling the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king.

The term “Messiah” occurs some five hundred thirty times in the Old Testament, and the importance of the title would be difficult to overstate. For example, Psalm 45, one of the messianic psalms, states this of the anticipated Messiah: “Your throne, O god, stands forever; your royal scepter is a scepter for justice. You love justice and hate wrongdoing; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellow kings” (Ps 45:7-8). Jesus, however, was not anointed as Messiah by oil; instead, the Spirit of God descended “like a dove” and the Father spoke his words of blessing, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Thus, wrote St. Irenaeus, the one “who anointed is the Father, the one who was anointed is the Son, and he was anointed with the Spirit who is the anointing” (see CCC, 438). He further noted that this same anointing of the Holy Spirit is given to all those baptized into Jesus the Christ. Entering the waters prepared by Christ, the baptized emerge cleansed by the Holy Spirit, filled with divine life, made children of the Father.