Friday, 18th Week of Ordinary Time

Matthew 3:13-17
Morning Prayer

So what does Jesus have to repent of, that he would need to be baptized by John?  The teaching of Jesus as like us in all things –except sin – seems to be contradicted by Jesus being baptized.  Why perform this sign of repentance, unless you have something to repent of?  Here is the paradox of Incarnation in full force.  On the one hand, what God did not assume, he could not redeem.  So, for our sinful nature to be forgiven and redeemed, God’s Son had to take that nature into himself.  On the other hand, if Jesus actually became a sinful creature, then the chasm between us who sin by rebelling against God, and God himself remains on the other side of that chasm, with no bridge between us, and Jesus now stuck with us on the other side.

The key to resolving the dilemma is identification.  Jesus is, in truth, sinless.  But by being baptized, he accepts the condition of human beings who, every day, are reminded of the distance between themselves and God caused by sin.  Jesus will feel that distance most on Good Friday, when he cries out, “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?”  But that wasn’t the only time he felt that distance.  Jesus is often described in the Gospels as praying.  We set aside a quiet time and quiet place, so that the distance between us and God may be decreased by our prayer, our communication with God.  But that was just as necessary for Jesus.  We shouldn’t suppose that Jesus could just strike up a conversation with God anytime he wanted.  Jesus of Nazareth could be distracted just we can be distracted.  Jesus of Nazareth also needed to take time to bridge the distance between himself and God.
 
The deep irony in today’s reading is this: the moment that God reveals his pleasure in his Son is also the moment that the Son identifies with humanity in its very distance from the God with whom Jesus was “of one Being.”  Jesus would prove his unity with God by showing the everlasting patience of God’s love on the same cross where he also experienced his greatest separation from God.  On the cross, Jesus identified totally with divine love, and with human alienation.  Isn’t paradox beautiful?