2024/01/08

125. Baptism of the Lord

John the Baptist threw harsh words at the crowd who came out to be baptised: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits that befit repentance" (Luke 3:7-8). The word 'brood of vipers' overlaps with the image of the descendants of the 'serpent' in Genesis. 

Observing the events associated with the 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil', of which the 'serpent' said that "when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5) (cf. Genesis 3:1-24), the following discussion can be done. People have an unconscious faculty of thought that judges something about the object of action (cf. Genesis 3:1-5). Judgments that appear in consciousness after a delay develop episodic memories, which are unique to humans and closely related to their linguistic expressions (cf. Genesis 3:6-8). From this perspective, the centre of the Garden of Eden, where God made the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil grow (cf. Genesis 2:9, 3:3), can be seen as the centre of human consciousness. From this perspective, the centre of the Garden of Eden, where God made the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil grow (cf. Genesis 2:9, 3:3), can be seen as the centre of human consciousness. 

See blog №124

The baptism of the Lord is the event in which Jesus Christ inserted his own life into biblical history. A Christian follows Jesus Christ by being baptised. By jumping into the future of the New Testament world where Jesus Christ is and living as an inhabitant of it, he, so to speak, prolongs the historical time of the New Testament world. The Mass liturgy, which emerged from the New Testament, makes this possible. 

For us believers who were to live within this prolonged New Testament reality of God, Jesus carefully redeemed with his Word each of the human errors that occurred in the book of Genesis (cf. blog № 116) and, by his own Passion and death, redeemed the sin of Cain, the first murderer, and the history of human sin (cf. blog № 117). Then, by being placed in the tomb as a dead man and resurrected, he erased first all mistakes, sins and death for all eternity to come. God testified with the new Bible that the memory of all the mistakes, sins and death in the Bible had been erased by Jesus Christ. 

John the Baptist's testimony about the baptism of the Lord, "I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him" (John 1:32), is the grace of their own baptism, which many believers still hold dear in their consciousness. They hope to hear the voice: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). 

The Gospel of John says: "And many came to him; and they said, 'John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.' And many believed in him there" (John 10:41-42). John the Baptist certainly fulfilled his mission.

Maria K. M.