Understanding the Word

By Dianne Bergant, C.S.A.

The first reading is taken from the second “servant song” of Isaiah. The servant has been called to bring the people back to God. However, this mission has been  expanded to include all people. This servant is to be a light to all the nations. It is  noteworthy that a people struggling with its own survival because of its defeat by  a more powerful nation should envision its God as concerned with the salvation  of all, presumably even the nation at whose hands it suffered. Yet this is precisely  what “light to the nations” suggests. 

Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians by identifying himself as an apostle,  one sent by another with a commission. He was called to be an apostle; he did  not volunteer. Therefore, as an apostle, it is the authority of Christ that he exercises. He maintains that all of this transpired because it was God’s will. In a very  real sense, this official greeting is really a proclamation of faith on Paul’s part. Just  as he had been called to be an apostle, so the members of the Corinthian church  had been called to be holy.  

The scene portrayed in today’s Gospel reading is familiar to many of us. It  includes the report of the baptism of Jesus and the Baptist’s identification of  Jesus as Lamb of God. John did not know Jesus. He only recognized him through  divine revelation. John then contrasts the person of Jesus and himself, as well as  the efficacy of their respective baptisms. Jesus may have come after John, but he  ranks far above him. And their baptisms are very different. John baptized with  water. Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit John saw descend  on Jesus at the time of his baptism. This led John to testify to his belief in Jesus  as the Son of God. These comparisons and this testimony point to Jesus as Son  of God. 

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