Commissioned in the Holy Spirit

Closing the Christmas season is the feast of the baptism of Jesus as the anointed servant of god (Matthew 3:13-17). Jesus is divinely commissioned as the spirit-filled son of the heavenly Father making available to all the new covenant where each one is god’s child.

In fulfillment of righteousness JeSuS deliberately seeks out John at the Jordan in order to be baptized. Matthew depicts Jesus directing events to carry out the divine plan to bring people to salvation. John’s recognition of Jesus’ superiority and that he, in fact, should be baptized by Jesus simply places the focus on the proper sequence for everyone in fulfilling what is righteous and according to the divine plan. The prescribed path for Jesus is to show continuity with the prophetic tradition in which John is the new elijah, and no one born of women is greater than him (11:11). John is the voice preparing the way of the Lord (3:3).

And John himself now admits that his baptism of repentance is not an end in itself but an opening for the Spirit, of whom he stands himself in need, as he tells Jesus: “I need to be baptized by You” (3:14).

Jesus and John have complementary roles in the story of salvation. Jesus comes after and goes beyond John, but does not bypass him. In the complete process of conversion, John’s baptism with water for repentance does not substitute for, but rather awaits fulfillment in, Jesus’ baptism with the Spirit and fire (3:11). John is the forerunner who represents the necessary preparation for, and clearing the path of, Jesus. In all righteousness, there must be both acknowledgment and renunciation of sin, and the life in the Spirit and identification with the Spirit-filled Son of God.

The beloved Son

The emphasis is not on John’s baptism, which is not described at all, but on the revelation (introduced by “behold ”) after Jesus comes from the water. The heavens are opened for Jesus and he sees the Spirit of God “descending like a dove and coming upon him”—Jesus becomes fully conscious of the divine source of his life, and it is giving itself to him in love. This personal experience of Jesus echoes with the longing of the prophet Isaiah for God to come and be with his people: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down” (Isaiah 64:1). With the heavens torn open and God once more available, the holy Spirit, the immanent presence of the transcendent God, is seen by Jesus coming down upon him.

In the hellenistic culture, a dove given by a lover symbolizes love. The heavenly gift to Jesus is at once interpreted: “This is my Son, the Beloved ”—Jesus is publicly proclaimed and acknowledged as the beloved of God. And resonating with the Noah story’s dove as the messenger of a new beginning for the earth (Genesis 8), the holy Spirit coming upon Jesus as a dove is the messenger of a new covenant between God and humankind. The meaning of the Spirit in the world through and in Jesus is the statement of the new possibility that Jesus has come to fulfill: to lead all into the love of God. As Jesus anointed with the Spirit is the Beloved Son, humankind is being called into God’s family as children of God.

Alálaong bagá, the Spirit-filled Jesus embodies the gospel of the new covenant with God. When we acknowledge our sins and let them be washed away with the waters of repentance, God’s gracious love awaits us, making us his daughters and sons in identification with Jesus, the Anointed with the Spirit, with whom God is well pleased. Jesus is the firstborn so-to-say (Romans 8:29), and his mission and ministry is to summon others to their ultimate identity as God’s beloved children, to awaken them to the mystery of God’s salvific love for his children.

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