“You are my beloved Son.
With you, I am well pleased.”
In the early Church, the Baptism of Jesus
by John the Baptist caused great scandal.
In fact, in one of the gospels, John’s, it is not even mentioned.
Even in Luke’s gospel, it is mentioned by saying,
“Oh, and he was also baptized.”
It was almost like a secondary comment.
The reason why they struggled with this
was that John the Baptist was only a prophet.
If Jesus was the Messiah then why did Jesus,
if he was the Son of God and the Messiah,
need to have his sins forgiven?
Why was he baptized? Because the baptism of John the Baptist
was a baptism of repentance, one for the forgiveness of sins.
There was a great consternation among the disciples
and early evangelists but it was quickly settled
that Jesus was baptized not for his sins but for our sins.
Jesus submitted to the fulness of humanity
and entered into the waters of the Jordan
so that everyone would know the way to the Father;
that in submitting himself he was doing the Will of the Father.
This was confirmed by the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove
and the Father saying in a booming voice,
“You are my beloved Son. With you I am well pleased.”
This is meant to be heard by everyone of us;
that when we get baptized that process now continues.
“You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased.”
We are called to continue this process of returning to God.
In fact, in the Eastern rite of our Church,
in particular in the Byzantine rite,
they believe that the day of Baptism is an incredibly important day.
It is the day of what they call the “Divinization Process Begins.”
The Divinization process is that process in which
we become more like God each and every day after our Baptism.
It is the beginning of a process
more than a single event to be celebrated.
This process lasts an entire lifetime
until we are resurrected from the dead
and we are one with God where the Divinization process is complete.
It is actually a beautiful way to understand our own Baptism,
whether we are a little child or an adult,
that day in the process is when we become more like God every day.
Of course, that just doesn’t happen.
We have to cooperate with this process.
And here comes the snag.
We get in the way of it all the time.
The process is happening but we stumble and we fall;
we call that sin.
But we do stumble and we also block and stop it
because we have no interest in it;
or, we may not even think it is a process that we need to go through.
There are all sorts of different variations of resistance
but the conversion experience, this ongoing conversion,
this ongoing changing of our hearts,
which we will call the Lenten metanoia, the turning back to God,
the changing of our minds is a conversion process
meant to last an entire lifetime;
until the very last day of our life.
No matter how young we are;
or no matter how old we get,
we are always in this process of Divinization.
For some people that is dreadful,
“Oh my God, are we always changing?”
I think that is incredibly exciting.
That is incredibly joyful that to the very last moment,
we always can get better.
Isn’t that amazing?
We can always to the very last moment, become better and better.
God’s love is the only way through which we can do that.
This unconditional love that God has,
“You are my beloved child.”
That is what God says to every single one of us.
Sometimes we find that hard to believe;
that we are that loved no matter what we do,
no matter what we say, God cannot love us any more.
And no matter what I do and no matter what I say,
God cannot love me any less
because he loves me completely.
We need to understand this unconditional love
does not mean “unqualified approval of all our behavior”.
Sometimes we mix that up;
that unconditional love equals approval of everything I do.
No.
God loves us.
But God doesn’t approve of our behavior when we go sideways;
when we go wrong.
But he still loves us.
And he wants us to submit to this Divinization process.
That all sounds like wonderful theology
on this the Feast Day of the Baptism of the Lord.
Where are we to go with this?
How does that change our lives?
Let’s look to the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah and
the second reading from the Acts of the Apostles as keys to unlock this.
It says in the book of the Prophet Isaiah
that the Messiah is going to set the captives free.
He is going to preach liberty to those who are captive, heal the sick.
There is a beautiful phrase here,
“A bruised reed you will not break;
or smoldering wick you will not quench.”
That speaks of a gentle and kind God.
And if anything Jesus did,
Jesus animated that image of our God as a gentle and kind God.
If we are going to cooperate with this Divinization process
then each and everyone of us needs to take on
the conversion process of being gentler and kinder every day.
Now can we imagine if everyone of us who left here,
and all of you who are online today that as a result of this Mass,
were just a little bit kinder and a little bit gentler each and every day;
and that the gentler and kinder version of ourselves
would come out a little bit more.
And, if each week, we did that same process
and we became kinder and gentler each and every week,
what would one year of being gentler and kinder look like?
What would two years;
what would ten years;
what would a whole lifetime of being kinder and gentler look like?
At least for me, that is an incredibly exciting process
that I could become gentler and kinder every day of my life
so that when I get older, God willing,
that I will be this gentle soul because surely I am not that now.
I’d like to be, don’t get me wrong,
I think this Christmas time with family and friends
probably proved that I wasn’t as gentle or kind as I would like to be.
Maybe, we start with our family and friends.
We ask ourselves
“Am I being the best version of myself in this conversation?”
Can we say as a parent trying to correct our children
from doing something wrong
“Is this the kindest way I can say this?
Is this the gentlest way I can do this correction?”
Or to the children, who are here and online
“Am I being a kinder and gentler person
than I was yesterday to my brother or my sister or to my parents?”
Are we kinder and gentler to our friends, our neighbors?
That is an exciting process to enter into.
We cannot enter into this process without the Grace of God.
Therefore, we come to this table for that reason;
we know that we need God’s help
to become more like him.
And that is the whole purpose of the Divinization process.
We receive him and we promise to become
more like him in our gentler, kinder version of ourselves.
Let me give you a simple little example of this conversion process;
it just doesn’t happen.
We have to commit to it.
If I am a waiter in a restaurant
and I want to become a software programmer
and that is my desire in life.
I want to be a better version of myself
so I am going to be a software programmer.
Now with the wish itself,
I am not going to become a programmer.
Oh, I serve a CEO of a software company.
He’s going to give me a job.
I’m going to be rich and famous by being a coder.
That is not the way it works!
If we want to become a coder,
and we are a restaurant waiter right now,
we have to take coding lessons.
We have to learn how to be a coder.
We have to find a way to start doing coding,
and then we can get the job to become the coder.
If we want to be kinder and gentler,
it is not just going to happen,
not with just the wish of it,
we’ve got to work at it.
We have to put some effort in to being kinder.
What does it mean to be kinder?
For the children:
how about a conversation with your parents about
what it means to be kinder and gentler?
And maybe ask for an example of
what would have been a kinder way to do certain things.
Parents, ask each other as spouses.
Friends, ask each other.
Let’s look for help on how to become this better version of ourselves.
It just will not happen because I wish it for you.
And it won’t even happen if we wish it for ourselves.
We actually have to take some steps to do it.
So today is the first step:
Come to the Lord. Receive the strength of the Lord.
Now let’s cooperate with God’s grace and become what we receive.
Let us become the gentler and the kinder version of ourselves
because the Divinization process lasts a lifetime and today,
we can recommit to what we committed on our Baptism day
and that is what the Baptism of the Lord promises today and every day.
“You are my beloved Son.
With you, I am well pleased.”
