REFLECTIONS

The feast of the Baptism of the Lord and this Second Sunday go very nicely together. The baptism of Jesus was all about the start of his mission, and the readings of today are all about our mission. ….. To be a baptised person is to be a person on a mission. Today we proclaim the second of the Suffering Servant songs of Second Isaiah It speaks of the call by God of one who was not only to restore the survivors of the Jewish exile back to their homeland, but to be a light of the nations. Remember we heard at Epiphany that ‘nations’ is the code word for foreigners, for non-Jews, for us. The mission of the Suffering Servant was to bring God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. This was the mission of Jesus. Following Jewish interpretation of the Suffering Servant songs, we can also say that it was not his mission alone. In the Jewish tradition these songs are given a corporate interpretation. As much as they apply to an individual they apply to a people. In baptism we become part of that people. Our mission is to be the servant of the Lord. Our mission is to call Israel back from exile. Our mission is to be the

light of the nations. Our mission is to bring God’s salvation to the ends of the world. To be a baptised person is to be a person of mission. In response to God’s call, in response to God’s voice spoken not only to Jesus at his baptism, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved’, but to each one of us at our baptism, ‘This is my son, this is my daughter’, our mission is to join with the psalmist and say ‘Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will’ (cf. Ps 39[40]:7-8). God does not want sacrifice; Jesus was enough. What God wants is our open ear, our availability, our willingness to announce God’s justice in the great assemblies of our lives. To be a baptised person is to be a person of mission. Brothers and sisters, let us give thanks to the Lord our God. Let us give thanks that our God believes in us. From our mother’s womb God has called each one of us. God entrusts us with the mission of being light to the world, God nourishes us with the broken body of the lamb, with the blood of the lamb poured out, so that we too can allow our bodies to be broken and our blood to be poured out in the service of our world.

(Liturgia)