Today is what some Catholics might call “real” Epiphany. But in reality, at least for Roman Catholics in the U.S., it is the Monday after Epiphany. Today, we begin the last week of Christmas, which ends Sunday with our celebration of the Baptism of the Lord.
We should be grateful for an extended liturgical season of Christmas. This gives us more extension time to reflect more deeply on the Incarnation of the Son of God. Jesus, born in Bethlehem of Judea, is God’s only begotten Son. Being of the same divine substance as the Father, He is begotten, not made. Hence, He is true God from true God.
As was mentioned yesterday, biblically speaking, there isn’t only one epiphany. Our liturgical observance of Epiphany celebrates Christ’s revelation to the nations, to the goyiim, to the non-Israelites. Two important terms are practically synonymous: epiphany and theophany. The Lord’s Baptism by John in the Jordan, as all four Gospels testify, was a such an epiphany/theophany.
By grace, through baptism, we are reborn as children of God. Because we are made, not begotten, we are not God’s children by nature. Before we are children, we are creatures of God. Being the only creature God willed for its own sake; human beings are unique creatures.1
As Sacred Scripture teaches, human beings were originally made in both the image and likeness of God.2 While the image of God, which is the foundation of human personhood, is ineradicable, our likeness to God is lost through sin. Through Christ, God seeks to restore our likeness through grace.
All of this is a prelude to the question prompted by our readings today: Why did God become Incarnate in the person of Jesus? What’s the point of this Incarnation? “Why?” is the most human of questions. To ask “Why?” is to seek meaning. It is the essence of our humanity to find meaning. This is why the journey of the magi is emblematic of our journey, not just as individuals, but as God’s people. God’s people have always been pilgrim people. Christ’s Church is a pilgrim Church.3
The simple answer to the question “Why did God send His Son?” is He sent Him to redeem the world. Christ came to restore our divine likeness. God does not redeem human beings apart from their cooperation, their consent, their desire. Human desire, whether conscious or not, is to understand and then realize the end, the purpose, for which we are made.
The Hundred Guilder Print, Rembrandt, c. 1649
Our Gospel reading for today is Matthew’s telling of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. This comes after His forty days fasting and praying in the wilderness. This period of preparation, in turn, immediately followed His baptism by John in the Jordan. Given that Bri and Ty are becoming Catechumens at this Mass, it is even more fitting to reflect on baptism.
What is Jesus’ message? “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”4 It bears noting that, according to Origen, who coined a new word to describe this reality, Jesus is autobasileia.5 This means that Jesus Christ is the kingdom of heaven in person.
The beginning of repentance is to recognize your sins and then be sorry for them. Contrition entails a firm purpose of amendment to change your life with God’s help. In his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul insisted: “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.”6 In 1 John we hear: “If we say, ‘We have not sinned’ we make him [the Lord] a liar, and his word is not in us.”7 Jesus came to call us to repentance and to redeem us from our sins. Redemption, therefore, requires repentance.
While you cannot save yourself, it’s necessary to grasp that salvation is not a passive endeavor. Practicing the spiritual disciplines taught by the Lord Himself: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, knowing and living the five precepts of the Church, receiving the grace given in the sacrament of penance by going to confession with some frequency, are indispensable for a Christian. Living this way makes you redeemable.
Being redeemable does not mean you somehow earn God’s favor through works. It means living in gratitude for what the Father has done by sending His Son, who, in turn, gives us His Holy Spirit. Far from living a sad sack existence, living as one redeemed is to live joyfully. In this calculus, joy is to happiness what hope is to optimism, especially happiness understood as putting your own satisfaction first.
As the former Christian who became a self-described “anti-Christ,” Frederich Nietzsche declared: “I might believe in the Redeemer if his followers looked more redeemed.”8 Since today the Church remembers Saint Andre Bessette, speaking from his own experience and somewhat echoing Nietzsche’s own take on dealing with life’s inevitable struggles, he told us something about what it means to live a redeemed and redemptive life: “Do not seek to have these trials lifted from you. Instead, ask for the grace to bear them well.”
1 Second Vatican Council. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World [Gaudium et spes], sec. 24.↩
2 Genesis 1:27.↩
3 Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church [Lumen Gentium], secs. 7.21 & Chap VII. ↩
4 Matthew 4:17.↩
5 Origen. Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Book XIV, chap. 7.↩
6 Romans 3:23..↩
7 1 John 1:1-10.↩
8 Frederich Nietzsche. Thus Spake Zarathustra, Part II, Chapter 26, “The Priests.”↩
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