We just jumped ahead thirty years in a single week. We’re now celebrating Jesus’ baptism, which happened at the beginning of His ministry.
After all the people had been baptized
Luke 3: 21-22
and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,
heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
in bodily form like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my beloved Son;
with you I am well pleased.”
The perennial question, of course, is: Why did Jesus need to be baptized?
I have a couple of answers to this:
- Because He wanted to show us what it means to dedicate one’s life to serving God.
- Because He was infusing His holiness into what became the Sacrament of Baptism, to help US to become holy through our participation in it.
I’m no theologian, obviously, but I love to ponder and pray about this because it’s such a deeply transformational way of thinking.
It shows me the deep connection between mind, body, and spirit. God helps me work on all three.