The Feast of Baptism of the Lord: 10th January, 2016
Is 40: 1-5,9-11; Tit 2: 11-14, 3:4-7; Lk 3: 15-16,21-22
Baptism - a moment when one is reborn, reborn through the waters, in the Spirit and by the Word.
The Water: Living in Chennai, water has a special meaning! There have been moments that I have stood still in front of that immensity of water, on the Marina beach looking on the Bay of Bengal, wondering what a power that lies there. It showed its true power with Tsunami that hit in 2004...and again a month back with the devastating floods. Water is not merely refreshing and renewing, but it is resetting. If that vocabulary from the e-world can be used, it would mean starting from the beginning once again. The waters of baptism claims exactly that effect on us. Being born again is not merely to undergo a ceremony and start judging the rest as damned; it is to reset my life, restart it with virtues and convictions that give me a new existence altogether.
The Spirit: The Mark of Ownership, the seal of the covenant between the Father and me, the One who makes me the dwelling place of God and the One who makes me call God, Abba Father! Being born again is to possess this personal sanctity and interpersonal sensitivity: personal sanctity of purity and sinlessness; the interpersonal sensitivity of accepting each other as brothers and sisters, born of that One Father!
The Word: The Word, made flesh, who speaks to us and invites us to a life that is modeled after him. To be born again is to be transformed into the image of Christ, to put on the mind of Christ and to bear his likeness. I was amused by the sharing of my elder sister who teaches in a Government School in a village on the outskirts of Chennai. She said about her children in class, who do not know terms like Christian or Catholic, telling her - 'teacher neenga Jesus thaane, appadina leavu mudinji varum pothu sweet eduthuttu vaanga!' (Teacher you are Jesus isn't it? then bring sweets when you come after holidays). That set me thinking- Aren't you Jesus? Am I not Christ? Have I become another Christ - alter christus? The Word challenges us towards that... to be born again, is to be reborn in the image of Christ.
Let us remember today the great gift we have been given in our Baptism and resolve to live that call to be Born Again - in water, the Spirit and the Word.