When contemplating the work of salvation that our Lord Jesus has done for us, we must look at all of His life as salvific. From his self-emptying incarnation through the Virgin Birth to His baptism to His crucifixion, His resurrection and even his Ascension, all of His life saves, heals and redeems all of my life, our lives. Everything He did is for our healing. Today, we're going to focus on His baptism.
First we understand that our salvation is very much a restoration of what we have lost in the garden. God had breathed into Adam His life-giving Spirit and it was through the Holy Spirit that Adam had life, real life, and had known God through His Holy Spirit. When Adam and Eve fell, the Holy Spirit left them and they became spiritually dead. It was only a very few number of people in the Old Testament who were given to receive the Holy Spirit, and that, only for a time, namely priests, prophets and kings. Therefore, it is only through the baptism of Christ that humanity received the ability to receive the Holy Spirit once again.
Our own baptism is a mystical participation in Christ's baptism and we therefore receive the Holy Spirit just as He did. And this changes everything. It is when He comes up out of the water that a voice from heaven cries out saying:
'' 17 ...[You are] my beloved Son in whom [I'm] well pleased.'' (Matthew 3:17)
Like I said, this actually really changes everything both for you and I. We too, when we received the Holy Spirit, have received the Spirit of adoption, as St. Paul says in Romans 8, by which we cry out Abba, Father. We too are children of God. We cry out Abba, Father and He responds You are my beloved children.
Can you fathom the depth of this healing, of this love, and this restoration, this greatest of honours that you and I should not only be called children of God, but even beloved children? I believe that this belovedness is what many are lacking. It is in knowing that we are His children that we can boldly enter into the throne room of God and there receive mercy and grace, as St. Paul says in Hebrews 4. It is this boldness of being the children of God that Christ restores to us when He, on behalf of humanity, enters into the waters of the Jordan and receives the Holy Spirit into our humanity.
Many people have this broken understanding that when they sin, they somehow lose this sonship or even this belovedness. If we, who are evil, would never abandon our children no matter what kind of madness they commit, how much more will our Heavenly Father never abandon us!
Do you not know that [you have become] the temple of the Holy Spirit?, St. Paul says. Do you not know that your sonship is dependent on the Holy Spirit and not on yourself? You are His beloved child. Embrace your belovedness. This is your actual identity, as defined by God. You are beloved and this is part of your healing. And give thanks to Him for his self-emptying love and His willingness to enter into the waters of the Jordan for your sake.
I wanna close with a quote from St. Cyril of Alexandria. He says:
''God, in his love of humankind, provided for us a way of salvation and of life. Believing in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and making this confession before many witnesses, we wash away all the filth of sin. The communication of the Holy Spirit enriched us, made us partakers of the divine nature and gained for us the grace of adoption as God's children. It was necessary, therefore, that the Word of the Father become for our sakes the pattern and way of every good work when he humbled himself to emptiness and deigned to assume our likeness.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, On Luke 3, Homily 11)
Glory be to God forever.