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The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.' I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water." And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God."
- John 1:29-34
On Monday we began to read the testimony of John the Baptist, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." Then they said to him, "Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?" He said: "I am 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Make straight the way of the Lord,"' as the prophet Isaiah said." Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees. And they asked him, saying, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" John answered them, saying, "I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know. It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose." These things were done in Bathabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.' I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water." My study bible tells us that John's declaring Jesus as the Lamb of God recalls Isaiah's "Servant of God" who dies for the transgressions of His people (see Isaiah 53:4-12). Christ is the true Paschal (or Passover) Lamb. He offers Himself for our deliverance from darkness and death (1 Peter 1:18-19). My study bible refers us to the commentary of St. John Chrysostom, who taught that Jesus came to John this second time in order for John to make this declaration and thus stop anyone from thinking that Jesus needed baptism to wash away sins.
And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God." My study bible notes that as the Spirit remained upon Him, this is a sign that Christ possesses the Spirit in His fullness from all eternity. He did not receive the Holy Spirit at His Baptism, but rather, this is a vision in which it was revealed to John the truth that the Holy Spirit has always rested on Christ. This is the second day we're given in John's Gospel. (Monday's reading gave us the first.) That the Baptist declares Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit means it's a greater baptism than his own of repentance, performed with water on earth. My study bible suggests this parallels the separation of water above from the water below on the second day in Genesis 1:6-8.
Once again we return to themes of the Creation story from Genesis as paralleled in John's Gospel. It's the birth of Jesus' mission into the world, His ministry. In today's reading, He is revealed as the Christ, the one on whom the Holy Spirit rests. To baptize with the Spirit is a greater gift than we can imagine, because to touch the world with the Spirit is to bring the world back to God, to rectify, to allow all things to find purpose and meaning -- mirroring back the Creation and all of its promise. This is what we find on this "second day" in Jesus' ministry. And we note, as always, the central importance of human beings and of all of creation to this story and this possibility. Everything is involved. John the Baptist, the great prophet, must be present to receive this vision. He must have disciples present, those who come from all around Israel in order to prepare for the coming of the Lord, those who seek. And the elements of the world must also be involved here. Water from the earth is used in John's baptism to repentance but must also play a role in the baptism that is to come, in which the world's waters are blessed for this "greater baptism." In the Eastern Church, the traditional view of this day of Jesus' baptism is just that: Christ doesn't need the baptism of repentance, but instead His baptism blesses the waters of the world for all the rest of us, so that we may receive the Christian baptism He will in turn offer in His Church. That the Spirit rested upon Christ is so significant and so interesting. Later on in John's Gospel, Jesus will explain to Nicodemus: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). In Jesus' explanation, we have a picture of the Spirit mysteriously moving like the wind, to His own purposes; but here on this "second day" the Baptist reveals that the Spirit rests permanently on Christ. Let us remember that He is the One to whom we go for what we need, for the grace and truth of which we wish to receive -- and "grace for grace" as we read in the Prologue to this Gospel. There is a reason why we must remember this central figure to our faith, and why we seek to participate "of Him and through Him and to Him" - Romans 11:36. In Him rests what we wish for, what we pray for; grace and truth are His to give. Let us look to the light as we go toward the great Paschal Resurrection through Lent. He is the Lamb of God.
