"Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. And as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, my Beloved; my favor rests on you' " (Mark 1:9-11).
We are not told how Jesus came to hear about John. We are, however, told that Jesus came to John, listened to him and was baptized by him in the Jordan. But why? Why was it that Jesus, the Sinless One, chose to identify himself with sinners and be baptized? Was it that he desired to express solidarity with all those who had come to John, solidarity with those who recognized their sinfulness and sought forgiveness in a baptism of repentance? In effect, this is what he had done, but was this really what had motivated him? Could it have been out of a sense of his own humanness, his own need for God? Later tradition held that Jesus was without sin, butthis is not to deny that he was subject to all the moods, feelings, emotions and inner struggles that are part of being human. When all is said and done, we have to wonder if Jesus at this time of his life really knew who he was. Did he know that he was God's Son, and did he understand all that that implied? To the people of Nazareth, with whom he had lived for almost thirty years, he was ordinary in every way. When he later returned there and preached in the synagogue, the people were astonished. "Where did he get all this?" they asked. "What is this wisdom he has, and these wonders that are worked through him? ... Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" (Mk. 6:1-3). It is not unreasonable to imagine that Jesus thought of himself in these same terms - as an ordinary citizen of Nazareth.
Mark tells us only that Jesus "was baptized by John in the Jordan." It is difficult, however, to piece together exactly what happened. The imagery of the heavens being torn apart, a dove descending, and a voice being heard projects a profound experience of God, yet it leaves much unsaid. At first glance, it seems to describe what was nothing more than a dramatic statement of God's affirming love for Jesus. Yet it is important to recognize that within weeks of his baptism at the Jordan the unassuming carpenter from Nazareth was speaking with authority and acting with great power - and we must ask ourselves: What truly happened at the Jordan? What was at the root of Jesus' experience that so transformed his life?
It is not impossible to imagine that in choosing to be baptized by John, Jesus had made a dramatic self-offering to God and, in response, God 'embraced' him as a father would a son. For Jesus, the result was a profound experience of being loved by God and what may have been a new awareness of himself: as God's 'Beloved' and of God as his Father. His experience of this love was of "the heavens being torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him." The Holy Spirit, God's abiding presence, entered into him, empowering him. For Jesus, his experience at the Jordan was more than simply a call; it was an overwhelming sense of being grasped by God for his service. He had been brought to understand that God had chosen to make his decisive intervention in history at this very moment and that he, Jesus, was to be the means of bringing this about. It would not be unreasonable to say that Jesus was overwhelmed. Mark's words only hint at what must have been his confusion and inner turmoil - "and at once the Spirit drove him into the desert."
Written by Br. Charles Jackson, S.J., LIS Associate Director
The Faces and Places of Advent
The month of December can seem like a battle of attrition between the invitation of Advent to a time of reflective stillness and anticipation, and the speed of an ever-accelerating race to Christmas, that is marked by purchasing, preparations, and pressure-packed celebrations (if such can truly be called celebratory!). In a world of seemingly endless tweets, texts, voicemails, and emails, we are submerged amid tsunamis of ads and invitations. Where is the space for inner silence, the quiet place of rest as we look for the coming of the nativity promise?
In the past few weeks, helping to facilitate retreats in English and Spanish, focused on the growth of personal and communal spirituality, I have been made more aware than ever of the deep longing people of faith have for inner connection to the God who calls them beyond the mundane and trivial to a rich encounter with an endless horizon of divine presence and surprise. Life in and as Church can become enmeshed in yet another round of activities, of movement, focused on external results before inner or shared awakening to God. To make such an observation is not to promote individual or communal passivity, a ‘me-first’ sort of preoccupation with how I/we can be enriched as part of a religious family. Rather, it is an invitation to be more attentive to the working of the Spirit before, during, and after our active engagement with duties and projects that grow out of our faith commitments.
The human brain is an intriguing and complex organ, but it has certain redundant processes that track our way through life. An act of shopping bears many cognitive parallels to an act of feeding the poor or decorating the church sanctuary for Christmas. If all that we do gets reduced to unreflective ’action,’ we do not ‘learn’ or ‘grow’ in the spiritual dimensions of our being-in-the-world. Time for reflective prayer or contemplative focus on the mystery of divine love in the most elemental aspects of our daily walk helps us to ground or locate what we are and do in something more profound than the completion of a to-do list! The result is that activity is held differently in our perceptions and in our memories. The God-stuff of our lives becomes clearer and more integral to our sense of purpose and meaning. We are not believers-who-do, but students of spiritual wisdom who grow to understand the richness and inner gift of all life, not just the select moments that our schedules set aside to ‘pay attention.’
Advent reflection is not a sudden turn to monasticism, or a wholesale separation from our engagement with the day-to-day. Rather, it is an inner choice, a decision for spiritual self-care, that allows us to nurture our capacity for divine connection, whatever the place or circumstance. This is not necessarily a matter of radical change that separates us from our current life (though some modification would probably prove quite useful!). It is a willingness to pay attention on a more consistent basis (once today, twice tomorrow—the discipline can become infectious) to the way in which our interior focus on the God who is present can help us to redirect our energies from the completion of tasks to the re-visioning of why we are tasked in the first place. Advent is a common space in which we are called to cherish our own daily experience as part of our inheritance among those who can discover the ever-new miracle of the Messiah, the birth of Jesus as our companion and guide to life with God.
Written by Fr. David C. Robinson, S.J., LIS Associate Director
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