Baptism of the Lord 11 January 2026 Sermon

Baptism of the Lord 11 January 2026  Identification

God takes the initiative in saving us. He comes without asking our consent, proposing to do certain things which would benefit the world, even it that world is not asking for it.

Of course the world asks for things that it needs, like peace, food, safety, but our Lord wanted to take it further than just meeting material needs.

He wants to save people by enabling them to become like Him: That we may come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled Himself to share in our humanity (Offertory).

God the Son would present those He could capture to God the Father, and that is how the great divide between divinity and humanity would be healed.

Our true nature restored, we would be able to share in the inner life of the Trinity.

The Father will accept whomever the Son brings. The Father welcomes the Son because He is at one with Him.

We welcome someone we love if we see them coming up the path. If they have other people with them those other people will be welcome too, because of their identification with us .

Complete strangers you might reject, but if you see the Beloved in there the whole group  takes on a more favourable note

The Son gathers as many as He can, and wants to take them home to the Father. Whether or not they will let  themselves be taken is the whole issue that we have been struggling about ever since the Fall.

Jesus leads the way, and some will follow. People can change positions. One initially agreeing can be lost; one initially resisting can come to accept.

We are caught up in this huge struggle, for our own individual souls, and for the human race as a whole.

The issue comes to our degree of identification with Jesus Christ.

Seeking to gather a people to Himself He leads the way into the water, indicating baptism in water will be part of the process.

Christ has no need to be washed clean from sin, but the people He is gathering will need it.

Jesus shows the way. This is what we will have to do.

When we come to be baptised it is to express our identifying with Our Lord, at the same time seeking to deepen that identity.

We are saved by being changed into the likeness of God the Son, approved as we do that by God the Father.

This means we act like Jesus Christ, not in the way of working miracles but in terms of charity and mercy.

We learn to see things as Jesus sees them and respond accordingly.

This way the Body of Christ becomes bigger, with more members yet no loss of fraternal union.

God wants to save as many as possible, and this is how it happens, individuals joining themselves to Christ as the centre of all life. Tree and branches (Jn 15,1-8)

The word ‘baptism’ means ‘immersion’. To be immersed means to be covered in whatever the substance is, in this case, the charity of Jesus Christ. To be as much like Him as we can be, this is all foreshadowed in Our Lord’s Baptism.

Baptism is a dying and a rising (Rom 6, 3-4). If we die in Christ we shall rise with him. The passing through the Red Sea is evoked as we travel from one state to another, to a much better state as we become more Christ-like.

Water cleanses and gives nourishment – a strong image of what awaits us in the spiritual world, cleansed from sin, enabled to live well.