Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased (Luke 3:22)
Jesus was baptized at about 30 years of age. At this age, according to Mosaic law, he could be baptized into priesthood.
Scripture doesn’t give us a lot of glimpses into Jesus’ life before this moment and it’s not hard to guess why. He was born for this day – this day of his baptism. This day the heavens opened and revealed to all that what had been foretold was now coming true and what was until now only a whisper was a shout of revelation.
How did Jesus feel that day? Surely he had known this was coming, or perhaps he hadn’t – some scholars think that scripture shows evidence that Jesus’ divinity was hidden from him until his baptism day. Regardless, how must it have felt for him to finally be in the moment where he knew what he was born to do? When he stood on the edge of who he had been and stepped forward into all that he was to become?
We’ve glimpsed such things ourselves. God makes it to be so. We may not get to see the Spirit descending like a dove or hear voices from heaven marking our passages but we feel their weight and joy nonetheless. When you clasped your hand with hers and realized that was the hand you would be glad to hold the rest of your days. When you heard the baby cry and gasped to know nine months of heartburn and swollen ankles had finally come to this – blessed THIS! When you embarked upon that task which both exhilarated and frightened you nearly to tears, yet you knew you were the one to do it.
Our passages are sacred as well. And God is no less present in the waters that run over the head of every mortal as God is present in the water and the word at the river Jordan the day Jesus was baptized.