“Do You Come to Me?”
John the Baptist appropriately recognized when Jesus came to him for baptism that, in light of who he was and in light of who Jesus was, he really needed to be baptized by Jesus; Jesus, though, wanted John to recognize that the submission of Jesus to God’s will for him and his willing identification with sinful humanity necessarily preceded the submission of sinners to him and the identification of sinners with him.
Before John or anyone else could and can submit to and identify with Jesus, they had and have to accept the fact that Jesus had first submitted himself to God and had first identified himself with them.
We have to receive who Jesus is and what he has done before we can give ourselves to him. We have to see that he has come to us before we can come to him.
Help us, O Lord, willingly to receive the grace that compels Jesus to come to us.
Help us, O Lord, willingly to respond to that grace with our lives.
Amen.
“John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he consented” (Matthew 3:14-15).
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