Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Sooner
or later everything that begins on earth comes to its end, like the meadow
grass that springs up in the morning and by evening has wilted. In Baptism, however,
the tiny human being receives a new life, the life of grace, which enables him
or her to enter into a personal relationship with the Creator for ever, for the
whole of eternity. Unfortunately, human beings are capable of extinguishing
this new life with their sin, reducing themselves to being in a situation which
Sacred Scripture describes as "second death". Whereas for other
creatures who are not called to eternity, death means solely the end of
existence on earth, in us sin creates an abyss in which we risk being engulfed
for ever unless the Father who is in Heaven stretches out his hand to us. This,
dear brothers and sisters, is the mystery of Baptism: God desired to save us by
going to the bottom of this abyss himself so that every person, even those who
have fallen so low that they can no longer perceive Heaven, may find God's hand
to cling to and rise from the darkness to see once again the light for which he
or she was made. We all feel, we all inwardly comprehend, that our existence is
a desire for life which invokes fullness and salvation. This fullness is given
to us in Baptism.
We have just heard the account of the
Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.
It was a different Baptism from that which these babies are about to receive
but is deeply connected with it. Basically, the whole mystery of Christ in the
world can be summed up in this term: "baptism", which in Greek means
"immersion". The Son of God, who from eternity shares the fullness of
life with the Father and the Holy Spirit, was "immersed" in our
reality as sinners to make us share in his own life: he was incarnate, he
was born like us, he grew up like us and, on reaching adulthood, manifested his
mission which began precisely with the "baptism of conversion"
administered by John the Baptist. Jesus' first public act, as we have just
heard, was to go down into the Jordan, mingling among repentant sinners, in
order to receive this baptism. John was naturally reluctant to baptize him, but
because this was the Father's will, Jesus insisted (cf. Mt 3: 13-15).
Why, therefore, did the Father desire this?
Was it because he had sent his Only-Begotten Son into the world as the Lamb to
take upon himself the sins of the world (cf. Jn 1: 29)? The Evangelist
recounts that when Jesus emerged from the waters, the Holy Spirit descended
upon him in the form of a dove, while the Father's voice from Heaven proclaimed
him "my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Mt 3: 17). From
that very moment, therefore, Jesus was revealed as the One who came to baptize
humanity in the Holy Spirit: he came to give men and women life in abundance
(cf. Jn 10: 10), eternal life, which brings the human being back to life
and heals him entirely, in body and in spirit, restoring him to the original
plan for which he was created. The purpose of Christ's existence was precisely
to give humanity God's life and his Spirit of love so that every person might
be able to draw from this inexhaustible source of salvation. This is why St
Paul wrote to the Romans that we were baptized into the death of Christ in
order to have his same life as the Risen One (cf. Rom 6: 3-4). For this
reason Christian parents . . . bring their children to the baptismal font as
soon as possible, knowing that life which they have communicated calls for a
fullness, a salvation that God alone can give. And parents thus become
collaborators of God, transmitting to their children not only physical but also
spiritual life.
