Reflection on the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Is. 49:3, 5-6; John 1:29-34

When I first read the Scripture texts for today, I thought it’s the baptism of Jesus all over again: one of Isaiah’s servant songs and the words about the dove and about baptizing and about the voice. Yet the words put into the mouth of John the Baptist are different from Matthew’s text last Sunday.  Last week John said, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?”  That’s all John said. We are onlookers to the event. John and Jesus are both experiencing it.

This week we have John the Evangelist telling the story, writing years later than Matthew. John the Evangelist tells his version of the baptism story through the words of John the Baptist. We are not onlookers, it seems to me, but we are listening as the writer John gives us his thoughts and inspirations after a good many years of reflection. But it doesn’t matter. Jesus is the beloved, the chosen one of God, whether in Matthew’s Gospel or John’s.  

Isaiah writes of what he understands God to be saying to him. He knows he is God’s servant – from the beginning, “from the womb,” he says – to do what God needs to have done. More than a servant, he is to be a light to others. God is his strength.

As we move forward in time, we find John the Baptist, also called “from the womb.” John finds himself called or moved by God to prepare the people for what is to come. John’s task is to point out Jesus, whom John the writer will later call the light of the world, a light for others, as Isaiah was.

Then, as always, we come to us. What about us? We, too, are called to be servants, called to be for others — an image we understand. We are called to be a light for others, called to bring hope and compassion. We can do it because, as with Isaiah, God is our strength.  

I think we can say we are called in this way, and we can answer the call, because of who we are. We find ourselves at this particular time and place in this long history of the universe.  Someone has said we are footprints of God. All of creation bears God’s footprint, God’s mark. Vestiges of God are everywhere.  The visible images the Invisible. Plants, trees, rocks, animals, humans — there are traces of God in all that is. All of creation points to God, shows us God’s love and bounty and power and creativity. We humans have a choice. We can choose to point to this God in whom we believe. And we have, and we do. Most here were out there for a long time pointing the way. Others of us are still “out there.” We can do it because of who we are. Together with Jesus we are God’s beloved. Together with Jesus we are God’s chosen.  

Circumstances change. Energies change. Abilities change. Yet all of us can go deeper. All of us can go deeper in the compassion and the kindness we have for those around us. Maybe some of us cannot do as much as before, but we can be a presence — a presence of God. For we are footprints of God. We can make the Invisible visible for someone else.

So let us know ourselves as God’s chosen, God’s beloved. Let us be a presence of compassion and of kindness that permeates the house — wherever we live.