In today’s gospel, seeing Jesus coming towards him, John exclaims: “Behold the lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world” (v. 29). Why does he define him with so singular an image? There was never a person in the Old Testament called “lamb of God.” The expression marks the culmination of his long and arduous spiritual journey. It started, in fact, from complete ignorance. “I did not know him,” he exclaims twice (vv. 31, 33).
Educated probably among the Essene monks of Qumran, John had assimilated the spirituality of his people. He knew the history and was familiar with the Scriptures. His allusion to the paschal lamb whose blood, placed on the doorposts of the houses in Egypt, had saved their forebears from the slaughter of the exterminating Angel foreshadows the fate of Jesus. One day he would be sacrificed like a lamb. John the Evangelist has certainly wanted to draw this same symbolism: It was, in fact, the hour in which, in the temple, the priest began to sacrifice the lambs.
There is a second reference to the lamb of God in the book of Isaiah, and every Israelite knew it very well—the Servant of the Lord, also mentioned in today’s first reading. Here’s how the prophet describes his move towards death: “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter…he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors” (Is 53:7, 12). John applies the imagery to Jesus.
The Baptist has in mind a third biblical call: the lamb is also associated with the sacrifice of Abraham. Isaac, while walking alongside his father to Mount Moriah, asks: “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Abraham replies: “God himself will provide the lamb” (Gen 22:7-8).
“Behold the Lamb of God!” the Baptist now answers. It is Jesus, given by God to the world to be sacrificed instead of the sinful man deserving punishment. Like Isaac, he is the only son, the beloved, the one who brings the wood to the place of sacrifice. Jesus, like Isaac, also freely gave his life for love.
At this point, one wonders if indeed the Baptist had in mind all these biblical references when on two occasions, turning to Jesus, he declared: “Behold the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:29, 36). Perhaps not, but certainly, John the Evangelist had them in mind. He wanted to offer a catechesis to the Christians of his communities and to us.
In the second part of the passage (vv. 32-34), the testimony of John the Baptist is presented. He recognizes as “Son of God” the one on whom he saw the Spirit descended and remained. The reference is to the baptism scene narrated by the synoptic Gospels (Mk 1:9-11). John introduces, however, a significant detail: the Spirit is not just seen descending upon Jesus but remaining in him.
Through Jesus, the Spirit came into the world. No opposing force will drive or overcome him and from him, the Spirit will be poured out on each person. It is the baptism “in the Holy Spirit” announced by John the Baptist (v. 33).
It is this message of hope and joy that through the Baptist, John, from the very first page of his gospel, wants to announce to the disciples. Despite the apparent overwhelming power of evil in the world, what awaits humanity is the communion of life “with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” These things—John says—I write “so that our joy may be complete” (1 Jn 1:3-4).
Every time, while preparing the wine for the Mass, the words form on my lips like a breath from the depths of mystery: “May the mingling of this water and wine bring us to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity.” A drop, a simple drop of water, loses itself in the wine. It is no longer seen, yet it transforms the whole, making it fitting for sacrifice. On this feast, this prayer becomes a window, and through it, I see the banks of the Jordan. There, the Uncreated Light, the Eternal Word, steps into the tasteless, mundane water of our human condition. This is the Great Mingling. God, in Christ, immerses Himself not in a sacred spring, but in the river of our collective story—a current often muddied by frailty, fear, and forgetfulness.
Why this immersion? What in our bland humanity could possibly woo the Divine? It is love itself, the very logic of the Creator for the created. This is not a fall, but a conscious, gracious descent. The old Adam, in his sin, became entrenched, trapped in the mire of his own making, unable to rise. But this New Adam enters the water to purify it from within. He takes our flawed nature into Himself, and by the alchemy of divine love, He makes it a vessel of grace. When He emerges, dripping with the waters of our world, He is the icon of redeemed humanity. He is the assurance that no one, no matter how deep they feel they have sunk, is irredeemably lost. Emergence is always possible. The Father’s voice tears the heavens open not for angels, but for us: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” In Jesus, humanity is reinstated, beloved, and capable of bearing the Spirit.
Yet, the mingling at Jordan was only the beginning of the formula. The water was but a sign pointing to a more profound, terrifying immersion. Later, when the sons of Zebedee, James and John, approached Him with ambition burning in their hearts—”Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left”—Jesus responded with a question that plunges to the heart of His mission: “Can you drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38-39). Here, He names the other baptism. The first was with Jordan’s water; the second would be with His own blood. The first was a mingling with our humanity; the second would be an immersion into the abyss of our sin, our alienation, our death. Psychologically, we must pause here. The disciples saw only glory, a linear path from Jordan’s affirmation to a throne. But Jesus saw the true architecture of redemption: the path to life winds through the valley of death. His conscious immersion was to be total.
He calls it a baptism. At the Jordan, the waters closed over Him momentarily. On the Cross, the flood of the world’s hatred, violence, and sin would engulf Him. He would descend into the very depths of human God-forsakenness, crying out the Psalm we cling to in our despair. This is the baptism that would truly, finally, and irrevocably mingle the divine life with the darkest consequences of the human condition. The water at the offertory mingles with wine, which will become His blood. That simple liturgical gesture contains the whole arc: from the Jordan’s water to the Calvary cup.
What does this mean for us? The disciples’ request exposes a universal human temptation: we desire the glory, the confirmation, the beloved status, but we wish to bypass the immersion that makes it authentic. We want resurrection without crucifixion, transparency without vulnerability, belovedness without the obedient descent. Jesus’ response is a gentle, firm correction. True greatness, true sharing in His divinity, comes only through sharing in the full shape of His humanity—which includes its suffering, its limits, and its ultimate surrender.
When He felt most alone, crying out “Why have you forsaken me?” He was, in the deepest mystery, enacting the most profound communion. He was drinking the cup of our isolation so we might never be alone. The Father’s question to the old Adam in the garden, “Where are you?” was a question born of a broken relationship. To the New Adam on the Cross, there is no such question. He is precisely there—in the place of the lost. The Spirit, who descended at the Jordan, sustains Him even in the offering. Therefore, the Feast of the Baptism is an invitation to hope-filled emergence, yes, but it is also a sobering call to consent to the full baptism of Christ. We are baptized into His death so as to rise with Him. Our daily immersions—into our own frailty, into the needs of others, into the inevitable sufferings of a love that is real—are participations in that one great baptism. We need not be afraid of the depths, for He has sanctified them.
The old Adam, clothed in shame, hid from transparency. Sin makes us opaque, even to ourselves. We build walls, we manage images, we live in the nightmare of being found out. But the New Adam, baptized and crucified, walks in the “sunshine of divine transparency.” His life is an open book to the Father. When sin is washed away, first by water and finally by blood, we have nothing to hide. Our fragility, held in His love, becomes a place of grace, not shame.
This is the journey from the Jordan to Jerusalem. It is the path from being declared beloved, to living out that belovedness through a self-emptying love that is stronger than death. As we witness Jesus in the water today, let us ask for the courage to accept both baptisms: the one that tells us we are loved, and the one that calls us to love to the end. Let us wriggle out of the opaque shells of fear and step into the luminous, demanding, and joyous transparency of the children of God.
全属于祢 
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