The Life Of Christ In Us
Baptism of the Lord (US)
My dear encountered couples:
Do we realize what baptism did for us? It made us important. It gave us a life above and beyond the capabilities of the life we already had. God began to live within us and share his divine life and powers with us; Jesus returned to earth so we could share our human lives with him. Jesus Christ can now live and love in ways he had never been able to do so before.
Can you imagine that? We added something to the life of Christ. We make it possible for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to do things on earth in ways that he could never do them before. Because we are each unique, because no two of us is the same, because no one exactly like us has ever existed before and will never exist again, we make it possible for Jesus Christ to live on earth bringing salvation to people in ways that have never been available to him before. He acted through his own human body and personality when he began salvation, now he is acting through yours and mine to continue it.
Today we celebrate the baptism of Jesus. It is to remind us of our own baptism. And to bring us to thinking just what ours was all about. Though it will always contain many mysteries, one that we need to become much more aware of is the mystery of how important we now are to Christ.
When we don’t cooperate, when we refuse to love and forgive and share the goodness that is within us with the people in our lives, Jesus becomes merely boxed up in us and is unable to do much of any good. We are not only to be tabernacles for divinity; we are to let Christ use our one-of-a-kind personality to draw others to heaven.
Our Baptism was intended not only to save us, but also others. Think about it.
