In the Gospels' account of Jesus' baptism, the Father and Holy Spirit both appear. Malcolm Guite reflects that the Father, Spirit, and Son:
Reveal to us the single loving heart
That beats behind the being of all things
And calls and keeps and kindles us to light
The dove descends, the spirit soars and sings
'You are beloved, you are my delight!' (Malcolm Guite, "Jesus' Baptism," Sounding the Seasons)
In Jesus' baptism, we see who God really is: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Guite captures the tri-unity of God with the image of a "single loving heart that beats behind the being of all things." One life. One origin of all things. One rhythm which sets the order, pattern, and beauty of everything that is to come. And the Christian faith, and the church that proclaims it, burrows deeply into this oneness of God when we proclaim that Jesus, though a man, is also fully God. For otherwise, what sense could be made of the great unity between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which presents itself as the great given, the great foundation, of all other truths throughout the New Testament? There could be none, if Jesus was another type of creation, someone that God at some point decided to make. No, the authority that Jesus claims is that he is the very image of God. When people see him, they see the Father. And yet, Jesus' baptism doesn't show us God as some sort of static, functional dead image on a page. We see God precisely in this unveiling of the holy communion that God has shared for all eternity. Guite's sonnet has many active verbs, suggesting the power and love of God that was busy at creation was also showing itself in the baptism of Jesus. When we see the fellowship of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - their mutually abiding love for one another - this is when we see God.
And Guite reminds us of our place in Jesus' baptism:
He calls us too, to step into that river
To die and rise and live and love forever. (Guite, Sounding the Seasons)
As the evil of the world drowned in the great flood, as Pharaoh's horsemen and chariots drowned in the Red Sea, so our sinful selves die in our baptism. Yet, as Noah and his family had an ark, and Moses and the Israelites had the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, so we have what those images ultimately pointed to - Christ. The one who gives up his life and who has the power to take it up again. He rises from the grave. So our baptism is not only into his death on the cross, but also into his resurrection. We live and love forever, knowing that it is in Christ we live. I like how in Guite's sonnet, it is not quite clear we have left the river we've gotten into in the first place. I like this because, although we eventually dried ourselves off from our baptisms, we don't dry ourselves off from the Lord we've now entered into. We emerge from the water eventually, but we don't emerge from Christ. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20) We've left whatever river Guite is referring to, be it the Mississippi, the St. Johns, the Euphrates, or the Jordan River. But we never leave this river, the river of Christ, the stream of living waters.
Life in him is so different that Jesus referred to it as a new birth. Thus, we resolve the story and season of Christmas - the day of Christ's birth - with Epiphany - the day of our birth. For this is what baptism means: the fulfillment of Christ's work, received as an effective and powerful symbol and sign showing us who we really are. God is a great rescuer. His word has gone out into the world and hasn't returned back empty-handed. His will is being accomplished - seen chiefly in women and men who find the riches and treasures of all things in their source and destiny - the one who all things come from, and who all things are for - Jesus Christ.
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