The Baptizing of Christ by St. John the Baptist

Our Lord needed no baptism of any kind. But he received the baptism of St. John, ordering the Baptist to proceed when he humbly and reverently expressed astonishment that Christ should come to him for baptism (Matt. 3:13-15). Christ was baptized, say the fathers, to sanctify the waters that they might henceforth beworthily used for cleansing from sin in Christian baptism. And as our Lord was to make baptism a required sacrament, so now he set an example to men by receiving the outward form and figure of the reality that was to be.

Our Lord was baptized by St. John the Baptist to show his approval of the rite of baptism and to sanctify it.

It was fitting that our Lord, at the age of thirty,received the baptism of John. The age of thirty seems to have a certain perfection. Joseph, the son of Jacob, was thirty when hewas made ruler of Egypt. David was thirty when he began to reign. Ezechiel was thirty when he began to prophesy. And now, our Lord atthe age of thirty begins his public ministry with the receiving of John’s baptism. Perhaps the perfection of thirty is inthe fact that it is the product of three times ten, and suggests the perfect fulfillment of the Law (that is, the Ten Commandments) by a living faith in the Holy Trinity. In these two things the perfection of Christian life consists.

It was through the River Jordan that the Chosen People passed when they came into the Promised Land. It was fitting that our Lord should sanctify these waters by being baptized in them. Thus he consecrated an element for use in that sacrament which enables a man to pass into the eternal land of promise, that is,heaven.

At Christ’s baptism by John, the heavens were opened. Scripture says (Luke 3:21): “Jesus being baptized and praying, heaven was opened.” There is rich signification here,for the true baptism which Christ was to institute opens heaven to mankind in three ways: (a) by exercising heavenly power; (b) bybestowing heavenly faith; (c) by giving an entrance to heaven. Andthe prayer of Christ at this time suggests the continual need of prayer in those who receive the sacrament of baptism so that what that sacrament confers may not be rendered ineffective by subsequent sin.

When our Lord was baptized by John, “the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, as a dove upon him” (Luke3:22). The visible coming of the Holy Ghost indicated what Christian baptism was to bring invisibly to the soul of the recipient. For Christian baptism was to be, not in water only, butin the Holy Ghost (Matt. 3:11).

The dove that came upon Christ when he received the Holy Ghost at his baptism by John was a real dove divinely created for this purpose. It was not an illusory image of a dove. But this real dove was not an incarnation of the Holy Ghost. It only indicated visibly the invisible coming of the Eternal Spirit upon Christ as man.

And the Eternal Father gave sensible manifestation ofour Lord’s divinity on the occasion of Christ’s baptism by John. For there was an audible voice from heaven which proclaimed,“This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matt.3:17). Here the Father’s audible words, the manifestation ofthe Holy Ghost in the dove, and the bodily presence of Christ the Son of God, are sensible manifestations of the Three Divine Persons in whose name the Christian sacrament of baptism was to be conferred: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizingthem in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19).