Why was Jesus baptized?
When John baptized Jesus, it meant something very different than it does to Catholics today.
Twenty years ago, director M. Night Shyamalan’s movie The Sixth Sense changed
how viewers experienced the power of perspective. If someone stopped
watching before the climactic “reveal,” they perhaps could have offered a
reasonably coherent plot summary. But as soon as they reached the
ending, everything they thought the movie was about had to be
reevaluated, and their reasonably coherent plot summary would not have
worked at all.
A
similar change in perspective is needed when considering Jesus’
baptism. Today, baptism means something particular to many Christians:
The ritual is an outward sign of the welcoming of people into the church
and of God’s forgiveness of sins. The Catechism of the Catholic Church
states that “through baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of
God.” But in presuming that because this is what baptism is, this is
also what baptism has always meant, we make a Sixth Sense-ish error. Our present view glosses over the past: In fact, when John baptized Jesus, it meant something different.
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