Fr. Michael Williams

In 1873 a Belgian priest, called Damian de Veuster, volunteered to serve a group of lepers based on the island of Molokai. He told his bishop, ‘I want to go there and share the lot of these unfortunate souls’. On arriving Damian found that Molokai was a place of degradation, suffering and death. He set about restoring the dignity of the lepers; he organised them into groups that constructed roads, cottages and clinics; he even organised sports and music groups for them. By his ministry Damian manifested signs of the Resurrection to those living in the shadow of death.

Throughout his ministry to the lepers Damian did not think of his personal welfare, but only the welfare of the lepers. He eventually contracted the disease himself and died. He had once said, ‘I will make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all for Christ’.

Damian entered the environment of the lepers to share their plight. Damian was following the example of Our Lord, who entered into our world of sin and suffering, to share in our plight. The Lord did not stand aloof from us, from His place in Heaven, rather He came down from Heaven to be in solidarity with a humanity, whose sins had separated them from God. Our Lord’s baptism reveals to us that Jesus wants to share completely in our condition. The Holy One of God was even willing to undergo ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. Jesus was sinless, but He wanted to unite Himself to humanity’s plight, so that He could deliver us from it. John tried to dissuade ‘the Beloved of the Father’ from ‘[this] baptism of repentance’, but Jesus is insistent. He needs to enter into our fallen, so as to free us from it.

The episode of the Lord’s baptism reveals to us the humility of God. God comes down from Heaven, not standing at a safe distance from humanity, but truly entering into it’s life. By wanting to be baptised Jesus is uniting Himself to a sinful humanity that is in need of redemption. God is showing solidarity with humanity. Through baptism Jesus is literally plunging Himself into the mess of the human situation. This will reach its zenith on Good Friday, when Christ takes upon Himself the sins of the world. The Baptism of the Lord (and His crucifixion) manifest St Paul’s understanding: ‘For our sake the sinless One [became] a victim for sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God’.

Ultimately Jesus enters into our plight, so that He could lead us out of it. Without Him there was no hope and eternal death was awaiting us. But following the Lord’s baptism ‘the heavens opened’; the heavens had been closed to humanity, as a result of mankind’s fall from grace, but now through Christ they are now open again. Our Lord’s baptism then also reveals to us the splendour of the Resurrection, where sin, death and their author- the devil, are defeated. And the new life of grace, and of Heaven, are manifested to the world.

Through our baptism we are now in solidarity with Christ, who has overcome the sufferings and the evils of this world. Through our baptism we share in Christ’s life; we share in His sufferings; we share in His battle against sin; and we share in His Resurrection. The Belgian priest, Damian de Veuster, lived out his baptism in union with Christ. Each of us here are also called to live out our baptism- in union with Christ, who leads us out of darkness into His own wonderful light.