On the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord I had the rare opportunity to take the weekend off due a visiting priest making an appeal for a worthy cause. As a result, I did not preach on this weekend, and was able to hear one of my brother priests preach. Truth be told, it reminded me a lot of seminary, because I only heard part of the homily and for the other part I was lost in my own thoughts and reflecting on the event of the Baptism of Our Lord. It has always seemed a little curious to me that God would be baptized, but truthfully this is no more strange in my mind, than the notion that God would deign to step into humanity in the first place. Yet He did. It is the great reminder of the depth of His love that He would step down from eternity and into time, and become man. Then, as a man, to lead by example the great things we can do as His children. Still, it begins in baptism. In our birth, we are born into the inheritance of sin. We come into a fallen world, with fallen people, and fallen ideals. But in baptism, everything is made new. We still live in the imperfect world, and encounter plenty of imperfections, but we have the genuine hope for something greater.

Just a few weeks ago I was replacing the spark plugs in my brother-in-law’s car. Usually a simple job, but the design of the engine necessitated that I disassemble much of the intake manifold, detach the throttle body, and remove many hoses. As I took apart the various pieces and detached hoses, many parts began to break off in my hand or just fall off due to age and wear on the vehicle. By the time I was finished with the job, I had not only replaced the spark plugs, but almost two thirds of the vacuum hoses, some fuel line, a valve, the manifold gaskets, and three screws. What does this have to do with our Lord’s Baptism? Well, if we really are going to embrace our baptism, even if we were baptized as children, then we must accept that a lot of things in our lives must change, and change for the better. We are called to renew the commitment of our baptismal promises, and in doing so, we sometimes have to recognize that some things in our life that were working just fine before, now must be renewed because of the deep level of change needed to really embrace our promises of baptism.

And that’s what I thought about during the homily of the Baptism of the Lord…and I was hungry…

I did not record any of my Christmas homilies.  As I preached each of the masses to its own settings and readings and did not wish to be distracted by the recorder. Instead, I offer you this beautiful, simple fact that recurred in all of my homilies: in the fullness of time, God has visited His people and has joined us in our struggle in the trenches, instead of just observing us from the other side.

Merry Christmas!