Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for Jan. 7, 2024 (Epiphany 1B/Baptism of Our Lord)

The Baptism of Christ, with donors and their patron saints (1505), oil painting on wood, altarpiece of Jean des Trompe, by Gerárd David (c.1450/1460–1523). Groeninge Museum, Bruges, Belgium. (Click image to enlarge.)

First Reading: Genesis 1:1-5

Now we turn to the season of Epiphany and visualize how Scripture reveals Jesus as Christ and Messiah. Week by week, we celebrate the various manifestations, or epiphanies, of Jesus’s divinity, beginning with the coming of the Magi on the Epiphany, January 6, and now his baptism. All four readings this Sunday speak of creation and new life through God in Word and Spirit. Our first reading begins with the opening words of the ancient creation story in Genesis. God’s Word rings out, and light shines in the darkness. Then God’s spirit breath sweeps over the face of the waters. In the beginning God creates heaven and earth. In the beginning was the Word.

Psalm: Psalm 29

“Ascribe due honor to God’s holy name.” This striking psalm, perhaps a call to worship at the ancient temple, uses the metaphor of a majestic storm to portray God’s powerful spirit wind. Such a damaging storm, breaking mighty cedars, shooting flames, and shaking the wilderness, might scare anyone into running for shelter. But it also has potential to lure us outside to feel the rain and the wind on our faces as the storm rolls through. After such an event, anyone would surely cry out in worship, thanking the God who gives us strength and peace.

Second Reading: Acts 19:1-7

The Acts of the Apostles continues the narrative of Luke’s Gospel, following the evangelist’s account of the early church after Jesus’ death. In this passage we find Paul in Ephesus, introducing a dozen followers to the Holy Spirit. They tell Paul that they have already been baptized through John’s baptism. But when Paul explains that John himself told the people to believe in Jesus, the one who was to come after him, they eagerly accept baptism again, this time in Jesus’s name. Then, like the apostles at the first Pentecost, they joyfully begin speaking in tongues and prophesying as the Holy Spirit comes to them.

Gospel: Mark 1:4-11

Last month, on the second and third Sundays of Advent, we heard Matthew’s and John’s accounts of Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Now here we are again, this time reading Mark’s version of the familiar story. John has been telling the crowds that one more powerful is coming, whose sandals John is not worthy to untie. In Mark’s typical brisk, no-nonsense style, we hear that Jesus arrives, is baptized, and emerges from the water to see the heavens torn apart and the Spirit coming down, while God’s voice rumbles from heaven, saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”