This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Prayer Over the Offering for the Baptism of the Lord.
Accept, O Lord, the offerings we have brought to honor the revealing of your beloved Son, so that the oblation of your faithful may be transformed into the sacrifice of him who willed in his compassion to wash away the sins of the world. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Did you know that this week we celebrate the second epiphany of Jesus? The first epiphany, or the manifestation of God to the world, was the visit of the Magi. The second is the Baptism of the Lord. The miracle of the water and wine at Cana is also considered an epiphany.
Our offerings, which are the bread, the wine, and ourselves, are described in the prayer as the oblation of your faithful, and what we ask is that they would be transformed into the sacrifice of Jesus, His Death and Resurrection.
What I didn’t expect to find in this prayer was the description of Jesus in the who phrase of the prayer, who willed in his compassion to wash away the sins of the world.
I was taken aback because Jesus didn’t need to be baptized in the first place. He was already without sin, yet He tells John to go ahead and baptize Him because it is “fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Thayer’s Dictionary defines righteousness as “the condition acceptable to God.”
In order to be acceptable to the Father’s plan, it was necessary for Jesus to be baptized. Because He was God, Jesus did not sin, but through His baptism, He could even more deeply identify with humanity.
As I prayed with this prayer, I had a sense that as Jesus went under the water and came up wet and clean, so, too, it is with us through Baptism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church par. 1263 teaches, “By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin.”
Chances are pretty good, however, that we will sin after we are baptized. This is where we should never underestimate the power of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This Sacrament could even be called a second Baptism, as every time we celebrate our reconciling with God, our sins are forgiven and grace is restored.
I imagined what it would be like to have been at the Jordan River that day, and I wondered what it was like for Jesus, to be with and talk with all these people who were probably wounded, addicted, and stuck in sin. Not only did He know that He would be the one to save them, He wanted us to. The prayer tells us that He willed it in his compassion, which is perhaps the most powerful word in this prayer.
There are various words in scripture that mean compassion, but there is one that is found only in the Gospels and is almost exclusively used for the compassion that Jesus felt. That word is splagchnizomai (splangkh-nid’-zom-ahee).
Splagchnizomai is a compassion that is felt in the gut. It is a visceral, internal reaction to suffering that compels one to mercy and help, not just detached pity. It is a compassion that moves one to action.
This is the compassion that Jesus felt at the beginning of time, at the Jordan that day, and that He still feels for us today.
His compassion moves Him not to just feel sorry for us, but to be for us the one to set us free from sin through Baptism, Reconciliation, and as we receive Him in the Eucharist. He is the beloved Son who takes away the sin of the world.