You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3.17
And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. Matthew 3.16
Who is Jesus Christ? He is Jesus, the Anointed One, the One on whom the Spirit rests – that is the meaning of ‘Christ’.
Our Lord was born to live in obscurity for 30 years. Then in his 30th year he comes for baptism. The heavens open, the Spirit descends. Jesus, conceived and born of the Spirit is filled with the Spirit. The Scriptures tell us he then returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spreads through the whole countryside
Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. He says this of himself – and of us!
His anointing as Christ and Messiah is not just for him - it is to be shared with us.
Our Lord is anointed by the Holy Spirit as Christ so that we might share in his anointing!
A Christian is one who shares in the anointing of the Anointed One. We can only do what the Church must do if we welcome and own that anointing in the Holy Spirit which is our own through baptism.
I believe that the church in this land has not failed so much as shrunk back from its task and that we need to get back to basics. That is why we need what Our Lord received and offered at his baptism – we need the Holy Spirit to come in power upon us.
Almost his last words to his first disciples at the hour of his ascension were a promise that takes up these first words about him at the start of his ministry: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses he said, as recorded in Acts 1.8
How’s your enthusiasm for sharing your faith? As one who shares in the Spirit’s anointing could today’s Holy Communion be for you a rekindling of passion through a fresh anointing in that Spirit on the Feast of Our Lord’s own anointing?
Sometimes we have an anointing from above or beyond ourselves. Other times – and I think this is very important – it is more a matter of experiencing an unblocking of the streams within.
In the story of Lourdes the key figure is the peasant girl, Bernadette, the shepherdess who in 1854 received a number of visions, allegedly of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In one of these visions Our Lady asked her to lift up some stones so that a spring was uncovered, a spring that flows to this day, a healing stream visited by millions every year.
How important discernment is! What healing streams can flow from one little insight!
We have a mission at St Bartholomew’s. Our Lord needs more enthusiasm in his people but where shall we get it from?
The word ‘enthusiasm’ means literally ‘in God’. It comes from an ever-fresh welcoming of the anointing of the Anointed One, a readiness to be shown where the flow of the Holy Spirit is getting blocked within us. It might be unforgiveness or unbelief, a quiet cynicism or readiness to speak ill of others, seek where it is, lift the stone and you will see how the Spirit flows again in your life, through you and around you, into your circle, into St Bartholomew’s!
Our Lord says: Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive John 7:37-9
How the Church needs to take this invitation to heart! How else can we hope to generate new enthusiasm about Christian Faith other than through some heart-searching for the things that weigh down and block the Spirit in our lives and in our Christian community?
As we do so – and let Our Blessed Lord lift those stones, the weight of sin – we will recover a sense of God’s goodness and become his effective instruments – real good news people!.
As baptised, confirmed - and some of us - ordained Christians we possess the Holy Spirit! We possess the Spirit - but does he possess us? That is the key to a spiritual vitality! The late Dom Ian Petit of Ampleforth wrote these words in his book You Will Receive Power: Baptism and Confirmation confer a supernatural gift, but ignorance or lack of understanding of the gift, can block its full effect. In other words, while the sacrament is valid and has been given, the effect has been blocked. When the block is removed then the full effect floods in...(a) baptism in the Holy Spirit… an opportunity for awakening in (people) their sacraments of initiation..
The New Year and Decade begin with a liturgical reminder about our ongoing need for this unblocking and awakening to the power of the Holy Spirit who visits us at every Eucharist. An awakening to the Spirit, a releasing of the Spirit, an unblocking of his flow – this is the invitation and challenge of today’s Feast!
There is one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and it confers the Holy Spirit. A gift though is given that needs to be received. For Christians to seek the renewing power of the Spirit – as we do as we receive Holy Communion every Sunday - is a matter of seeking to be more fully what we are in Christ and nothing more or less than that!
We want to be a people that live knowing their need of grace!
The Spirit is waiting to confirm to us the same words that were spoken to Our Lord at his baptism: You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
Christians share in the anointing of the Anointed One – Jesus is the Christ or Anointed One so he can share his anointing with us and speak into our hearts those words of adoption: You are my son, my daughter; with you I am well pleased.
I have baptised you with water; John the Baptist said but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit. This baptism or gift of the Holy Spirit is an ongoing reality for those who will commit themselves. The Gift is not so much a once for all thing or commodity but rather something dynamic and ongoing. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a process in which the relationship that opens up at Baptism becomes an ongoing flow of love, praise and power leading into ongoing consecration in the Truth.
It is worth recalling that though Our Lord himself was conceived by the Holy Spirit he waited 30 years for his Baptism in Jordan. So it can be – as it was for me and can be for you - that though I had received the Spirit through Infant Baptism, Confirmation and Ordination the first deep experience came many years later.
For me this came through, of all things, a crisis of faith – and a recommitment! Shortly after my ordination and First Mass I began to have serious questioning in my journey of faith. I went on a retreat and prayed ‘God if you’re there show yourself, give me a vision of yourself more to your dimensions and less to mine’ – and he did – and keeps on doing - and what he does for me he can do for you - believe me!
Another way to look at it is like this: if the Christian life is like a rose bush there are great spurts of growth from time to time that push out new branches with new flowers. One such branch and its some branch in its fruitfulness – is, if you like, a new opening up to God’s Spirit. Yet, like the life of the rose bush, its the same Christian life before and after such a new spurt of growth.
We possess the Spirit - but does he possess us? That is the question we are being asked on this feast of Our Lord’s Baptism. There is a commitment issue here we need to address. As we come to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion are we really committed and open to his empowering? Are we ready to hear and to believe those wonderful words: You are my son, my daughter; with you I am well pleased.
After the sermon we sing the Creed together. May the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life strengthen us in both the practice of our Faith and in enthusiasm to share it with others in the coming Decade!
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