2022-Jan-9: Feast of the Baptism of our Lord

 2022-Jan-9: Feast of the Baptism of our Lord

 

Isaiah 40:1-11

Second Isaiah was written for an audience that had experienced trauma (Fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, exile in Babylon and eventual return from exile per the decree of Cyrus the Great in 540 BC) and whose relationship to God had been deeply wounded as a result. It is grounded in proclamation and promise, but shaped fundamentally by careful listening to those things that afflict the hearts of the audience. 
The path home becomes a level highway at the sound of the messenger. This will be no forty years trudging through a desert. The return will be a pilgrimage along a well-kept thoroughfare.
The message given is confident and hopeful, “Here is your God!” Here is a God who comes to feed the flock, to gather the lambs, to lead the mother sheep — to bring comfort. 

Psalm 104

Psalm 104 presents a glorious picture of God as creator and a sweeping view of the world God made.

Titus 2:11-14 3:4-7

Paul (or, as scholarly debate suggests, someone writing in the tradition of Paul) writes this letter to his assistant Titus, charging him with organizing and teaching a relatively new church on Crete (Titus 1:4–5; 2:1).  Paul left Titus behind in order to continue his journey, “I left you behind … you should put in order what remained to be done” (Titus 1:5). After charging Titus with appointing elders and bishops for the churches in Crete, Paul describes, at length, the qualities and characteristics those leaders must possess.  It details how church leaders and members of Christian households are to behave: as self-controlled, moderate, honest, and especially as full of good works (Titus 2:7, 14; 3:8, 14). Such basic directives were necessary because of an apparent lack of human decency in the culture compounded by false teachings.
Titus presents God’s unfolding plan of salvation in terms of two epiphanies of Jesus. The first is the the whole of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection, rather than just his actual birth in Bethlehem. The second epiphany is that our salvation will be fully realized when he comes again in glory as “our great God and Savior” (2:13). Until then, we live between two epiphanies, in hope and expectation.
Titus' exhortations reflect the values of Hellenistic moral philosophy. For us today, this means our relationships with one another, with the communities in which we live, and with the world should reflect the love of God in Jesus Christ, “who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds” (2:14)
Titus 3:5–6 states that God brings salvation to people through the work of the Holy Spirit, who is poured out richly through Jesus Christ. The Spirit renews people, giving them a “washing of rebirth”
The truest gift of the Christmas season is God’s gift of Jesus Christ to the world, and through him, the Holy Spirit which animates our lives and brings us salvation and eternal life.

Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

Luke narrates a four-part baptism sequence in which (1) the people who asked questions were baptized and wanted to know if John was the Messiah, followed by (2) Jesus’ baptism shows his humanity even though as Son of God he did not need baptism, and (3) his prayerful moment a recurring theme in Luke, accompanied by (4) a visual and auditory revelation that Jesus not John is the Messiah.