A reading from the prophet Isaiah (55:1-11)
‘O you who are thirsty, come to the water!
You who have no money, come buy and eat!
Come buy wine and milk without money, free!
Why spend money on what cannot nourish
and your earnings on what fails to satisfy?
Listen carefully to me:
have good things to eat and rich food to enjoy.
Pay attention, come to me; listen, and you will live.
I shall make an everlasting covenant with you –
the mercies of my steadfast love for David.
Look, I have put him as a witness to peoples,
a leader and lawgiver to peoples.
Look, you will summon a nation unknown to you;
nations unknown to you will hurry to you
for the sake of the Lord your God
because the Holy One of Israel has made you glorious.
Seek the Lord while he is to be found,
call to him while he is near.
Let the wicked abandon their ways
and the sinful their thoughts.
Let them turn back to the Lord
that he may have mercy on them,
to our God, for he is rich in forgiveness.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts
and your ways are not my ways – declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are high above earth
so are my ways above your ways,
my thoughts above your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from the sky
and do not return before watering the earth,
fertilising it and making it germinate
to provide seed for the sower and food to eat,
so it is with the word that goes forth from my mouth:
it does not return to me unfulfilled
or before carrying out my purpose
and achieving what it was sent to do.
The final chapter of the second part of Isaiah begins with the invitation to come to the water and drink, to come and eat. God’s gifts are freely given. ‘Listen and you will live!’ God reaffirms his ‘everlasting covenant (berit ‘olam)’. It is renewed at the return from exile, and further renewed by Jesus Christ, and by baptism into his new life. On this final day of the Christmas season we are urged to ‘seek (darash)’ the Lord, and to ‘call (qara’)’ on him. God’s ways are different and surprising. This is what Christmas has taught. But those who are open to the ‘word (dabar)’ that comes from God, and are ‘watered’ by his rain, will be given new life by his gifts.
Isaiah 12 This canticle from Isaiah offers the ‘water of salvation’.
A reading from the first letter of saint John (5:1-9)
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ
is a child of God,
and whoever loves the father
loves the son.
In this we know that we love God’s children,
whenever we love God and keep his commandments,
for this is what the love of God is:
keeping his commandments;
and his commandments are not burdensome,
because whatever is born of God
conquers the world,
and this is the victory that has overcome the world –
our faith.
Who can overcome the world
but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
He it is who came by water and blood,
Jesus Christ,
not with water alone
but with water and blood,
and it is the Spirit that bears witness,
for the Spirit is Truth.
So there are three witnesses,
the Spirit, the water and the blood,
and these three are one.
If we accept the testimony of human witnesses,
God’s testimony is greater,
for this is God’s testimony
which he gave about his Son.
The children of God know that Jesus is the Christ. They follow God’s commandments by loving all God’s children. The Son of God came with the ‘witness’ of water, for he was baptised by John in the Jordan, and with the ‘witness’ of blood, for he is ‘the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world’ (John 1:29). The third witness is the Spirit of truth, who gives testimony with the Father at the baptism of Jesus.
A reading from the holy gospel according to Mark (1:7-11)
And as he proclaimed John said, ‘After me is coming the one who is more powerful than me, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’
It was in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised in the Jordan by John. And at once, as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well pleased.’
The first action of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is to seek baptism from John. The text is unambiguous: ‘he was baptised in the Jordan by John’. Baptism for repentance might be considered inappropriate in the case of Jesus, but solidarity with sinners suggests its real purpose. It is Jesus himself who sees ‘the heavens torn apart’ and ‘the Spirit, like a dove, descending’. The voice of the Father affirms approval of the Son, the ‘Beloved (agapetos)’.
Why does Jesus seek the baptism of John?
Jesus is silent at his baptism in Mark.