“Striving
Together with the Help of God’s Anointing”
January
12, 2014.
The 1st
Sunday of the Christian Season of Epiphany
=and=
The Feast
of the Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Isaiah
42: 1 – 9/Psalm 89: 20 – 29/Acts 10: 34 – 38/Matthew 3: 13 – 17
His Excellency
The Most Reverend Ariel Cornelio P.
Santos D.D.
Auxiliary Bishop and Locum Tenens
of the
Archdiocese of Manila
the
National Church in the Philippines
and the
Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the
Charismatic Episcopal Church
The Season of Epiphany
officially started with the manifestation of our Lord when He was still a baby
to the Magi, the Wise Men, from the East - representatives of the
Gentiles. Today, the First Sunday of Epiphany, we celebrate the Feast of
the Baptism of Our Lord in River Jordan. It kicks off the Epiphany Season
on its first Sunday with a Trinitarian Epiphany: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
manifesting themselves and affirming that the fullness of the Godhead is in
Jesus Christ in bodily form.
The natural question
about the baptism of Christ is: why did He need to be baptized?
John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance and for the cleansing of the sin.
John himself, the only sensible person that Jesus could talk too, did not
fully understand why Jesus had to come to him. John asked Him, “Why did
you come to me? I need to be baptized by You?” Jesus says to him,
“Well, permit it to be so for now so that we fulfill all righteousness.”
This was the very
summary of Jesus’ life and purpose for His incarnation. It was to do only
what the Father tells Him to do. Jesus says that this is what He lives
on, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me.” Actually,
John’s testimony itself talks about Jesus being manifested to Israel.
John said, “I came baptizing in the Jordan that He might be manifest to Israel,
as the Son of God, as the anointed One, as the Christ and as the
Messiah.” John was not short of giving testimony as to who Jesus
was. John existed before Jesus did. He was six months older than
his cousin Jesus. He knew who Jesus was. He knew he was not worthy
to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. He knew that Jesus was
coming to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. He knew that the
Spirit of God was in Christ.
John knew that Jesus
was the Christ and the Messiah. He also knew that He was the Lamb of God who
has come to offer Himself, His life, for the life of the world, for the
salvation of man, for the reconciliation of man to the Father. John
knew all these things and other testimonies He gave to Israel, the people of
God. It was Israel in the Old Testament; it is us today.
In the fullness of
time, the public inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, calling and mission came,
thus, the baptism at Jordan. The testimony of the Father was added to the
testimony of John. The testimony of the Holy Spirit was added to the
testimony of John. This undoubtedly is the Son of God, the Messiah that
is to come, the Christ, the anointed One, the Lamb of God who take away the sin
of the world.
It was not a strange
thing to the Israelites that the title of Messiah was the Son of God.
Every Israelite knew from reading Psalms 2 that God talked about the Messiah as
that being His Son, “Thou art My Son. Today, I have begotten Thee.”
Every Israelite knew that this referred to the Messiah. Isaiah says, “In Him,
the servant of God, the anointed One, God so delights. In Him, He is well
pleased.” Isaiah 11 and 61 talks about how that the Spirit of God is in the
anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah.
Jesus reads the portion
of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. For He has sent Me to
proclaim the favorable year of the Lord to release captives; to proclaim
forgiveness of sins. This is My mission because the Spirit of the Lord is
upon Me.” The Israelites, His own for whom He came and rejected Him, told
Him He was blaspheming because they did not believe that He was the
Christ. They knew that what He read was the fulfillment of the prophecy
of a Christ. They did not believe that it was Him.
The Spirit of the Lord
resting on Christ was affirming that this indeed is the Son of God. John
said that he kept baptizing so that this would happen and so that Jesus would
be manifest to Israel – to God’s own people. It is to show us that Jesus
receives anointing from God, as a man, through the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 10, Peter said,
"You know how that God anointed Christ with the Holy Spirit and with power
at the baptism.” Jesus did not come to be cleansed; He was
clean. He did not come to be forgiven of sin or to repent. He did not
have sin ever. A Cappadocian church father, Gregory of Nanzianzus, said
that He came not to be sanctified by the water, but to sanctify the
water. He did not come to be cleansed by the water; He came to cleanse
the water. He empowered the water so that the water can’t just become an
outward sign, but an instrument of the Holy Spirit for cleansing, for rebirth,
for transformation.
During the Easter
vigil, we pray for the baptismal font. In the prayer, we thank God, “By
sending Christ who had His baptism cleansed the water for our baptism so that
the same water He cleansed would cleanse us and empower us.” Christ was
baptized not for His sake but for our sake so that we could also be
strengthened and cleansed by the water that He Himself cleansed. Thereby,
at His baptism, Christ instituted the Sacrament of Baptism bringing fullness to
John’s baptism which foreshadowed it. All the things in the Old Testament
is only a foreshadowing of the things in the New Testament.
In Baptism, we are
cleansed and reconciled to the Father. The song in the Christmas Season
“Let Christian Men Rejoice” says, “He has opened heaven’s door and man is
blessed evermore for Christ was born for this.” At Jesus’ baptism, the
doors of heaven were opened and the Father said a proclamation about His Son.
About heaven opening, Gregory of Nanzianzus says, “Heaven, like the paradise
with the flaming sword which was closed by Adam for himself and for the rest of
mankind, now opened. In His baptism, it opened its doors and showed that
God is now willing to reconcile man to himself through His beloved Son in whom
He is well pleased, whom He sent to offer Himself for the reconciliation of man
to God.”
Christianity is not
just about getting saved and getting our foot at the door of heaven. It
is about fulfilling of our mission and also following after Christ, His example
and His life. His commandment was, “Carry your cross and follow Me.”
Peter said about how
God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power and how he went about doing
good, healing all oppressed by the devil. What was the purpose of his
anointing with the Holy Spirit and with power? This is so that he could
go about doing good, healing and restoring life to all who were oppressed by
the curse of sin and death. This is the same mandate that we have: we are
to do the same thing.
Matthew 12 is the
fulfillment of the Old Testament reading in Isaiah 42 which said that Jesus
healed all of the sick multitude who came to Him,
without discrimination. He did not interview them as to whether they
believed in God or in the three Streams, if they are convergence, Baptist or
Catholics. He healed them all. No questions asked. The people
needed healing, He healed them. They were in sin, He reconciled them to
the Father. Matthew 12 says that this was to fulfill His
calling as the anointed One in whom God’s Spirit is well-pleased.
We have the Sacrament
of Confirmation in the Western tradition of Christianity. In the
Eastern tradition, the Orthodox calls it, “Chrismation.” This is when we
receive the oil of chrism. The oil of chrism symbolizes the Holy Spirit,
the anointing of God in us. In baptism, the Holy Spirit descended
upon Christ, which Peter said the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon him.
In the Old Testament,
the chrism oil represented the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God. The
chrism was for anointing and was stored in the horn of a bull. The horn
in the Old Testament represented strength and power. In the horn is the
chrism oil which is strength and power from God which is for anointing, for
empowering, for strengthening and for enabling.
The first people who
were anointed by the chrism oil were the priests because they were called and
authorized to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people. Before they were
ordained priests, they were anointed with special oil of chrism for this
special vocation. Secondly, for their office, the prophets were anointed
because they proclaimed the living Word of God. Thirdly, the kings were
anointed to save their people from the enemies. The song verse
says, “Manifest at Jordan stream, prophets, priests, and kings supreme.”
These are the offices that Jesus held. In the Old Testament, the king of
Judah actually was called the anointed one. In Hebrew, the Messiah.
In Greek, Christ. They were anointed. There is a difference between
Lord and The Lord. A Christ to The Christ, The Anointed One.
In Jesus’ baptism, He
accepted these offices, His calling – for Himself and also for our
behalf. Jesus is the first-born of many brethren who shares the
same nature, who have the same Father, and now who have the same anointing and
same calling. Christ was manifest at Jordan stream. The first thing
that happened after the baptism of Christ in Matthew 4:1 was that He was tested
in the wilderness.
We sing in Epiphany, “Manifest
in valiant fight; quelling all the devil’s might. Manifest in gracious will,
ever bringing good from ill.” Sickness to health; addiction to
wholeness and deliverance; sinfulness to righteousness; good from ill.
This is healing that is in God’s wing. Romans 8 says that He caused all
things to work for good. He doesn’t identify first the sin and magnify it
and gives you a sermon that you are going to hell, and say, “You abominable
heathen.” Jesus does not concentrate on the wrong. He turns the wrong,
the ill to good.
The problem with us
today is that we major in sin and say we have to study our enemy, the author of
sin, so that we would be more able to effectively quell his might or fight
against him. See the problem and turn it into good because we have been
anointed. We don’t have to magnify it.
If you come for
confession and just in case you tell me or a priest, “I kidnap a person; I
torture them; I skinned them alive and I confess it to you,” you would not
hear, “You did that? How did you do that?” The priest would just nod his
head. God is not surprised by what we commit. He has already
taken care of it – each of them. He does not say, “How can you have done
that. You are a Christian!” Jesus said, “Your sins have been
forgiven. Sin no more.”
The Pharisees said,
"Did you know what this woman did? Did you know how many men she slept
with? Did you know that she was caught in the act?” Jesus
simply said, “Go, your sins have been forgiven, sin no more. You have been
anointed. You have been empowered.” It is not magnifying the wrong,
but just bringing good from ill.
Why do we need to be
confirmed, to have the Sacrament of Confirmation after we have been baptized
and received Christ in bodily form in the Eucharist? Our name is
Christian, which means anointed ones. Chrism is anointing. We are
the anointed ones sharing Christ’s same anointing. We share the same
Spirit who descended and rested on Him. We share not only His anointing
but also His mission because He sent us to evangelize the world.
We are called and
anointed because the Church we belong to is a missionary community. Each
of us is expected as a joint supply. We work with the Church; we strive
with the Church. We are striving together for the sake of the
gospel. We do everything together. Like in the Eucharist, the Deacon
will now tell us when to kneel and when to stand. We will march on
together from now on. It may be a small thing but we learn to walk in
cadence and we do things together. Small or great. This is what we are –
one!
My question: what
are we doing with the anointing? Epiphany is God in man made
manifest. First, in Christ; but also manifest in us. Jesus did
it. We must follow suit. We need another EDSA. EDSA means
Epifanio Delos Santos. Translated in English, it is “epiphany of the
saints.” We are to be revealed as the sons of God to the world.
When we are revealed, we manifest God in man.
This is what we need to
do. We have been empowered to do that. It shows us at the baptism
of Christ. We are to strive together with the help of God’s
anointing. This is what is available for us and this is what God wants us
to avail of. This is what eternal life is. Knowing God, obeying,
God, pleasing God.
This is the way it is
in the kingdom of our God
LET
US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION
WITH
CARDINAL OF
HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
AND
VENERABLE PRIMATE
OF
THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
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