What God the Father tells Jesus after his baptism is what he wants to say to each one of us: “You are my beloved son; with you and I am well pleased. “Jesus came to earth to call forth God’s pleasure on sinful mankind, to lift us back into membership in God’s family. Later in this same chapter from Luke’s Gospel, we are given the genealogy of Jesus, tracing his ancestry all the way back to Adam. In that genealogy, Adam is described as the “son of God,” because he had been created directly by God, as the first man. So, from the beginning, we were called to be members of God’s family. Yet our rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden made it impossible for us to fulfill that calling; it cut us off from our inheritance. Jesus, through his loving obedience to the Father’s will, reversed that rebellion. Now, by uniting ourselves to Christ, we can enter once again into communion with God, being truly God’s beloved children. This is even symbolized visually during Christ’s baptism Luke tells us that “heaven was opened. “So, in Christ, earth and heaven are once again connected; the abyss of sin is bridged. Then St Luke tells us that “the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, like a dove. “This language calls to mind images from the Old Testament: The Holy Spirit hovering over chaos at the very dawn of creation – Christ’s coming is a new creation. The dove that brought the olive branch to Noah after the flood – Christ’s baptism is a new flood, cleansing the world from sin and death. In short, the baptism of Jesus summarizes the mission of Jesus: to reunite each one of us with our heavenly Father, now and for all eternity.
