Baptism of the Lord Year B
Thirty years have flashed by in a week. Thirty years framed by two great epiphanies. Between the howling baby adored by shepherds and scientists and the silent figure coming to John at the Jordan—between them there is a lifetime of mystery. Somehow that helpless, demanding, fragile, noisy, tiny baby becomes a kid under his mother’s feet, becomes an adolescent under his own, finds friends and loses some, learns life and discovers death, earns a living, negotiates respect, plays and prays and laughs and cries, falls in love, drinks and dances, gets lost, gets hurt, watches things grow, stands by helpless as others wither, smells the bread baked, sees the vine ripen, hears the desert wind of his people, tastes the bitter tang of illness, feels the lash of Roman tongues (and worse), buries a father, worries over a mother, looks up in awe at starry skies, gazes in shame at poverty and neglect and … wonders why he can’t settle, why—happy as he is—he is restless.
Wonders why the words of Isaiah echo inside him the way they do, like his own words, “To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.” O God, if not now, when? If not us, who? “I Adonai have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand. I have formed you, and set you as a covenant for the nations.” Burning words, aching hopes. “How much longer must we wait Adonai before you show your glory? Will you not rend the skies in two and show yourself as of old?” If not now, when? If not me, who?
Add comment January 12th, 1997