Baptism of the Lord A.  January 13, 2008.  7:30, 11:30, 6PM.  Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7.  Acts 10: 34-38.  Matthew 31: 13-17.

Do you remember where you were on 9/11?  I was sitting in the police station at a meeting of police chaplains when someone rolled in a TV just as the first tower was about to fall.  By the time that I got home the second tower had already fallen.  In just a few minutes people began to wander into church.  Some sat in silence. Others cried quietly.  We were hurt.  We all felt vulnerable.  We were all confused.  At the same time we all knew who we were.  We were all Americans and we were all together in our love for our country.  Sometimes it takes a great tragedy to remind us who we are and to get us moving.  What we did next as a result of our new found identity and strength as Americans has made all the difference in the world.  Our true identity and our mission is not something that we discover in a moment, even in a moment of great crisis.  We are called to deepen our identity and to discern our mission at every moment in our lives by the choices that we make at every bend in the road that lies ahead.

When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan a heavenly dove descended on him and a voice from heaven proclaimed, “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”  None of us have ever had our identity announced as clearly as this.  As clear as his identity was as the Beloved Son of God, the identity of Jesus was challenged by the devil’s temptations in the desert, his identity was tested in the garden on the night before his died, and the identity of Jesus was made perfect by his death on the cross.  Jesus had to make choices that deepened his identity at every moment of his life. 

Saying that we are Americans and having that identity strengthened and clarified by the events of 9/11 has little positive meaning unless we act according to the values that make us a great nation – liberty, justice, equality and opportunity for all.  It doesn’t mean anything that we say that we trust in God if we don’t act that way.  Living out our American identity will cost us a lot.  The hardest thing about living out our identity is not doing something.  The hardest part of living out our identity is doing the right thing.  Freedom is true freedom only when we do what is right.  Freedom is true freedom only when we chose to do what God wants.  Knowing what is right and good takes prayer and careful discernment. 

Israel expected a messiah who would set the Jewish people free from the domination of Rome using political means and military might.  It would have been much easier for Jesus to accept and rally support around the kind of a Messiah the people wanted.  But who ever heard of a crucified Messiah?  Jesus had to choose to be the suffering servant who proclaimed God’s faithful love from the cross at every step of his life.  Being proclaimed the beloved Son of God was only the beginning.  Choosing to discover and live out the meaning of his baptism in the unfolding of his human life meant seeking to discover and follow the will of God always.  True freedom is not about doing whatever we want.  True freedom is about doing what God wants and choosing what fulfills the purpose of our existence.

Most of us were baptized as babies.  Our sense of our identity and mission as Christians has had to grow over the years.  Every time that we come into church we dip our hand into the holy water at the doors to remember the day of our baptism.  This is much more than a routine or a ritual.  It is a way of reminding us that we must continue to grow in our sense of who we are as sons and daughters of God; we must continue to choose to live out the particular mission and purpose that God has for our lives.  True freedom is about becoming the person that God calls us to be.

Each year we go to the Basilica for the Confirmation of our ninth graders.  A couple of years ago Fr. Paul Jarvis taught me a valuable lesson.  Fr. Paul, the Archbishop and I were standing by the baptismal font in the center isle at the back to the Basilica.  Fr. Paul called Archbishop Flynn and me over to the baptismal font.  He said to the Archbishop, “Did you know that Fr. Bob was baptized in this font?”  I must have told this to Fr. Paul sometime in the past. As I stood there with one hand on the baptismal font where my parents had brought me to be baptized, looking at our ninth graders as their pastor and priest, I thought to myself “You’ve come a long way, baby!” I was filled with awe and wonder at the mysterious way that God works in our lives.  God has a plan for every one of our lives.  That plan begins in baptism.  It involves many choices and challenges after baptism in discovering and living out our identity and mission as sons and daughters of God.  The moment of our baptism was the beginning of an adventure in becoming the person that God has called each of us to be.  We are truly free when we allow the grace of baptism to empower us to discover, choose and live the will of God at every moment of our life journey.

Today we celebrate the baptism of Jesus and our own baptism as well.  We give God thanks and praise for the wisdom and the courage to live as sons and daughters of God in ever deeper ways until we achieve the full purpose that God has for each of our lives.  For our vocation as sons and daughters of God we give God thanks and praise.