BOTW 1-1-2021
hi and welcome to our breaking open of the word dismissal this sunday we celebrate the baptism of the lord we end the christmas season and monday we begin ordinary time so we're going to start in right with our readings um there are actually two options for the first reading both from isaiah but we're going to concentrate on isaiah 42 and i'm going to read that and then we're going to discuss it a reading from the book of the prophet isaiah thus says the lord here is my servant whom i uphold my chosen one with whom i am pleased upon whom i have put my spirit he shall bring forth justice to the nations not crying out not shouting not making his voice heard in the street a bruised reed he shall not break and a smoldering wick he shall not quench until he establishes justice on earth the coastlands will wait for his teaching i the lord have called you for the victory of justice i have grasped you by the hand i formed you and set you as a covenant of the people a light for the nations to open the eyes of the blind to bring out prisoners from confinement and from the dungeons those who live in darkness the word of the lord okay so what insights do we have from this reading that we'd like to share oh okay so um if you if you isaiah 42 is uh what sometimes they'll call the suffering servant and it what it's doing is thinking of in terms like this it's contrasting christ and the servant that um the future messiah is contrasting um a worker versus a sufferer versus a king and a conqueror so uh the jews at that time were expecting a king and a conqueror in the in the um vein of say king david um and what isaiah is saying is this uh servant whom i uphold my chosen one is going to be a suffering servant so it would be um a like a a worker verse and and sufferer versus a king and a conqueror so when you read it you said he says i uh joanne just read from the new american bible but mine here is a bystander version so mine says i have put my spirit upon him this is god speaking and and this is isaiah the prophet is speaking in terms of uh the present day and looking forward so it's it's it has its uh present day feel to it because of the babylonian captivity but it's looking outward towards um towards the future but when it says i put my spirit this is the same spirit that came down on jesus at the baptism it's the holy spirit it's what we um what we say it's the third person of the trinity so it says and i'll bring forth justice to the nations anytime you see the word nations it's talking about everybody it's it's adding the gentiles into the mix and that's what the this is essentially the fulfillment of the covenant made with abraham not the covenant with david and not the covenants with moses but the one with abraham that you will be a light unto the nations you will be a light unto the gentiles so um this voice this voice that he's talking about here is um and the voice heard at baptism is speaking to um to the prophet isaiah specifically but it's also uh speaking to the to the angels in this in this greater uh group of people and then is speaking to the israelites the jews and then ultimately spreading out to the nations so um verses two through four he will not cry or lift up his voice or make it hurt in the streets and that goes back to what i was saying earlier it's um it's contrasting a military leader to the future messiah what christ is going to do is not going to be done through the force of violence uh a king that would come on the scene here the the jewish understanding they're in captivity in babylon or or they're about to be and what they're looking for is the ability to um to break that that bond that they that this uh servitude that they have towards a conquering uh people but that's what the what isaiah is prophesizing out into the future is um that this future messiah will what he will do it will not be done through violence it'll be done through love and through um of your fellow man and then and like i said it will bring in in in essence it will bring the babylonians into the into the fold it'll bring them into the to the um to this future uh kingdom and then it it skips and down from there that's verses one through four then it gets down to um verse six i am the lord i have called you in righteousness have taken you by the hand and kept you and all that's doing is just confirming what he says in one through four it's confirming the covenant with abraham and that's what christ does in his public ministry if you notice what he he we will talk about it later uh sometime in either january or february or march the woman at the well she's not a jew um uh these various people that he comes in contact with the samaritans and these um non-jews and that's verses six through seven is just confirming that that um his public ministry reaches out to um all and ultimately it ends with um i've given you as a covenant to the people a light to the nations and if you think in terms of jesus brings light to the darkness and it's not that not it is it's a darkness kind of outwardly the jews had they were a light they were not fulfilling it properly but they were a light they were supposed to be a light to the nations and they were fulfilling that to some extent but when he says that he will bring light to the darkness their understanding was that the pagans the the gentiles were living in darkness and christ would would bring that in so that's kind of what we're saying here think in terms of isaiah 42 as mainly a contrast between a military king versus a suffering servant someone who but but don't think of suffering servant as someone who although christ did suffer don't think of it in terms of he's being beaten daily it's it's he's suffering in the sense that to be a servant is to place someone else in in front of you and and ultimately what that's doing is just fulfilling the covenant that was made with abraham and i think that part towards the end where it says to open the eyes of the blind to bring out prisoners from confinement and from the dungeon those who live in darkness it reminds me of when jesus was in the temple and he opened the scrolls to the book of isaiah and he read about he read these words and he says those that there's that one that they are speaking of is in your midst so he revealed himself to those around him and i think that's what ties this so closely to baptism not only does it free us from sin and free us from darkness and to live in the darkness but i mean to live in the light but it also manifests jesus as the messiah and the savior mike did you have some insights well i i was just um we're going to be talking about the um the baptism of jesus here next but but this verse really looks forward to the baptism of jesus where we uh yeah and so in that in that baptism we see some of the verses just pulled almost directly from the prophecy so we see this looking forward to the messiah and uh in in isaiah and then we see we're about to see in in mark uh the messiah showing up okay this is you know this is this is he you know i am he so uh this fulfillment of prophecy is is a as a marvelous thing that we're that we're looking here these how these readings are put together um looking here forward so um yeah so that that that'll point straight to the next thing we're going to talk about i think okay um which will point us to the gospel um you know that we're into cycle b so we're reading from the gospel of mark and this is taken from mark chapter 1 verses 7 through 11. a reading from the holy gospel according to mark this is what john the baptist proclaimed one mightier than i is coming after me i am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals i have baptized you with water he will baptize you with the holy spirit it happened in those days that jesus came from nazareth of galilee and was baptized in the jordan by john on coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the spirit like a dove descending upon him and a voice came from the heavens you are my beloved son with you i am well pleased the gospel of the lord elliot okay so um once again mark here and if you think about mark mark is uh is the shortest gospel is the one where and he doesn't he doesn't talk at all about the early life of jesus he just hits the scene with john the baptist starts straight into the baptism and he's um it says in in the beginning of it's it's kind of like an introduction uh the beginning of the gospel of jesus that's the way mark does and then boom he's there as written in isaiah the prophet if you try to go just as a side note if you try to go back and look for that in isaiah you won't find it there you'll find it in actually malachi chapter 3. behold i send my messenger before your face who shall prepare your way so it's not there's not a contradiction it's just he's thinking in terms of isaiah but the actual quote comes out of malachi so basically what we're talking about here is mark is making sure some thought that john the baptist was the coming messiah and in here john is making it very clear that he's not he's uh he's confirming the fact that i am not the messiah and it's it's kind of interesting here john's humility here is pretty profound um what does he say here he says i can't even tie his shoes i can't basically i can't even the the lowest servant that would be would be the one that puts the shoes on and ties him and he says i'm not even good enough to do that um he says i can't i can't even tie his saddle so he's john is showing us that jesus will show us in just a second here um a profound sense of humility and that's i think that's pretty important and what that does is it's setting it up for us to um an example for us to follow um he talks john talks about um he's his baptism the baptism that john has been doing is symbolic only it is a baptism of repentance and and i was thinking about it yesterday it it almost was about it was a baptism that almost kind of echoed yom kippur or the day of atonement it was just an acknowledgement that they had sinned and acknowledgement of repentance and which is what yom kippur is the day of atonement but what what he's saying is that the baptism you're going to get once you become a follower of christ that's going to impart the holy spirit and that's going to put an indelible mark on your soul and that is most superior way more superior than this now the baptism of john this baptism of repentance is um important and it's it is it it really is necessary even in the baptism we get as christians but it is superior in that it it unleashes these gifts of the holy spirit in a way that john's baptism couldn't do and i just i got one verse for you and there is some continuity here with the old testament and where in zechariah chapter 12 verse 10 it says and i will pour out on the house of david in the inhabitants of jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication so that when they look on him whom they have pierced they shall mourn for him and there's if you want to look uh joel chapter 2 i think his first 20 uh has something similar to that um but there is this notion that that there's going to be this pouring out of the spirit in the old testament it would be god saying i will pour out my spirit upon my people my chosen people the people of israel um but once again jesus's baptism show what shows a profound amount of humility on jesus's part because mike or joanne does jesus first of all does he need to be baptized no and then the other question that kind of occurred to me yesterday and i was as i was reading i thought wait a minute does jesus baptism add anything to either the humanity or the divinity of christ no it doesn't in that jesus is holy holy human in his perfection and he's holy divine being baptized all it does is it it shows a um it reflects humility he did it not because he needed to do it he did it as an example um to us plus um i wish i had the words with me but in the blessing of the waters during the easter vigil it says that by him going into the waters he sanctified the waters so that now waters the waters of baptism can remit original sin that's something jesus did to the waters but yes and and that's that's a that's an important uh understanding of christianity and what the the what what happened there but but there's not jesus was perfection so there's nothing that baptism could have added to his divinity and essentially it verified john's mission um and it gave john indisputable proof of who christ was um so that now john i know he very shortly he's going to be killed but from this point forward he now can go out into the world and be the voice of one crying in the wilderness knowing with assurance assurance that the person that he just baptized is in fact the christ um we have examples of the old testament you for those of you want to look at judges chapter 3 and chapter 6 just two but the spirit the holy spirit in the old testament was always if you notice every time a prophet would go out he would be anointed with the holy spirit as for his mission which essentially we the whole the gifts of the spirit are opened up in us at baptism so that we in fact can go out and um and do the mission that particularly difficult missions is what you see it in the old testament um like i said the the sin spirit added nothing to the dignity of christ or the fullness of his grace it was already possessed by christ just but it was just a it was a profound as i said act of humility on his part in the same way he's just following john's profound act of humility earlier so and then i'll end it with this for me um i was telling mike mike loves his his greek and where it says um um that this is my son in whom i'm uh my beloved in whom i am well pleased that that word beloved can be translated on either only or it can be translated as only begotten so there is some um a hint of our future nicely in creed the only begotten son so what you what god is saying is you're mine and you're my only your my whatever you want to eat the first fruits only be gotten um so uh i would i would just add that's a great um look at that um elliot i would just add that the symbolism uh in christ's baptism is really profound because there's a great article this by the way in catholic answers where they they take um material from uh pope benedict's book jesus of nazareth but uh uh pope benedict brings out that the water images in the old testament all images both death and life death is in the flood but life is in the waters flowing from the river jordan to to feed the growth of plant life and such so so the baptism of jesus really echoes what his mission is so his immersion in the water becomes death and his coming from the water images then foresees his resurrection to new life so he deals with that old testament idea of water is both life and death and he takes so we can say that in the baptism of jesus um jesus takes on man's burden of sin as he's about to do foreshadowed in the cross and takes them to the depths as it were and then he um then he's and he stands in the place of sinners in anticipation of his of his redemptive act on the cross it's uh it also is reminiscent of what he uh talks about the sign of jonah you know uh uh so jonah told the crew members of the ship he was on to throw me in the sea okay and throwing jonah in the sea was going to cause the storm to end because the basically the salvation the saving the crew members of the boat he was on so um in that way he's he's like jonah he goes in the sea to save us the ones in the boat also when he so he accepts death for humanity he takes that sign of jonah takes that sign of the water um so uh one other thing is that he also he's he's taking this water he's he's making uh a transition as it were into water out of water and now he he becomes moses again so moses we talked about jonah but he's also moses who takes takes the israelites across the sea through the waters as it were out into the promised land so his baptism there also reminds us of his of our own baptism and by our own baptism we can participate in the baptism of christ so christ's baptism gives us something to as it were dive into okay to to participate in uh christ's death and of course his victory is his resurrection uh to new life um so uh and so also by christ's baptism he he institutes the sacrament basically okay so he gives us this uh sacrament along with blessing the water sanctifying the waters and it shows us the path to holiness the cleansing as it were the cleansing in that death and then bringing resurrection to life so that's just some of the things i found from um that's great and i think i think we're about out of time i just add one thing before we close um what we had from the first reading about um setting the captives free that's one of the um when jesus revealed himself at that point in the new testament that's one of the luminous mysteries of the rosary and the baptism of jesus is also one of the luminous mysteries and another place in scripture where we hear the words here is my beloved son in whom i'm well pleased that's also um from another miracle of jesus the transfiguration so that's another point of um light another time where we see jesus revealed as the messiah so i thank you for your time i thank you for all the insights that were brought forth and we just thank you for joining us
2021-01-15 06:56
