Brief synopsis of the readings: Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God proclaims his servant “my chosen one” who will bring forth justice. This servant will establish this justice without crying or shouting. God promises again a covenant, “a light for the nations.” Prisoners will be freed and those in darkness will be liberated. Luke’s Gospel describes people gathered around John the Baptist and asking if he is the Christ and John reminded them that there is one coming who is mightier. After they were all baptized, Jesus too was baptized. Then the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on the crowd. All heard a voice from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Before I was a priest I ran a CCD (Sunday School) program. Our students received the sacrament of Confirmation in 8th grade and as part of their preparation they attended an all day retreat. During the afternoon one of the priests came down to hear confessions. I was in the front of the line and went in; I had no intention of going to confession (the priest was my boss, after all) but I wanted to give the appearance that I did. Looking back on this I’m not terribly proud of my deception but I wanted them to see that nobody is “above” this sacrament.

I write this because I think many of us wonder if Jesus needed to be baptized; after all, wasn’t he the Son of God? In our history many Christians have believed that baptism removes the stain of original sin and only those who are baptized can enter heaven. This belief has caused generations of parents to baptize their children as soon as possible but also led to the belief that an infant who dies without baptism doesn’t go to heaven but instead to “limbo” which we no longer teach.

And so, let’s move beyond that understanding of baptism to one of inclusion, of welcoming somebody into our community of faith. Given that it’s not a surprise that Jesus was himself baptized though I find it interesting that he was baptized after “all the people had been baptized.” Perhaps this was the first of his examples of how he would exercise leadership: the last will be first and the first will be last.

If we believe that baptism is about inclusion and belonging we can see how different Christian communities have practiced it. Some, particularly those Christians who identify as “born again” or “evangelical” hold off on baptism until early adolescence. They believe nobody should be baptized until they have sufficient understanding to ask for it but we Catholics have taken another path and baptize infants. I hold that we do this for a few reasons.

The first is that the community welcomes the newborn. I used to say this to new parents: “Before you knew who we were, and before you knew who you were, we chose you.” Paul speaks about this in his letter to the Ephesians (Eph 1:4) that God chose us from the beginning. If our most basic need is to be loved we can all agree that we have a like need to belong to a community and it need not wait until we recognized that community. As today’s Gospel tells us: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” There is some controversy but I’ve always found value in holding baptisms during Sunday mass. As part of the baptismal rite the community pledges to assist the parents and godparents in teaching the faith to the child and it makes little sense if the only witnesses are 10 people crowded around the baptismal font on a Saturday afternoon. Obviously the infant won’t be aware but I think it’s a good recognition for the child’s parents and godparents and it gives the community the opportunity to watch that child grow over the years.

But we can also see that baptism begins our life of service even before we are aware of it. Jesus’ baptism in the Gospels started his public ministry but I like to think that when he was growing up he was a child who was kind, and thoughtful, and generous. Many years ago our neighbor told us with great joy about their four year old son who participated in an Easter egg hunt. He found several eggs but also noticed a little girl who hadn’t found any. Without encouragement or direction he gave a few eggs to her. The family moved a few years later and he’s now in his 20s. I don’t know what his life is like now but I like to think that this act of kindness began his life of discipleship.

We answer the call to discipleship throughout our lives with varying degrees of awareness and commitment. We’ve argued this point to death when we talk about the sacrament of Confirmation but I don’t think we can mandate a line where we recognize our desire for baptism. Certainly a person can look back on his baptism and reject it but I don’t think the ability to ask for baptism is a requirement. And having spent several years working with teenagers I can tell you that they often make decisions based on what they’re expected to do or what their peer group is doing.

But if we view discipleship as a lifelong response to God’s love and see baptism as the communal acceptance, the question of timing goes away. We are, in a sense, always baptized. And more importantly, we are always beloved in God’s eyes. That makes baptism more of a recognition than a rite of passage. Obviously I don’t fault other religions who baptize later, but I do believe they are missing out on the recognition that we are beloved from our earliest point.

So maybe Jesus did need to be baptized.