The voice of God rings out loud and clear, the readings this week tell us, proclaiming a message of salvation. Faith, the readings also tell us, means changes in behavior—a reorientation of one’s whole life.

What if you knew absolutely for a fact that God is calling you to do something? Would you do it? If you’re a believer, of course you would. The hitch lies somewhere in the terrain of knowing “absolutely for a fact.” First, you have to know for sure it’s God who’s calling. Not some manifestation of guilt or righteous indignation or human sympathy. But really and truly God.

The interest of the people by now was building. They were all beginning to wonder, “Could this John be the Messiah?”

The place where John the Baptist lived, conducted his ministry, and baptized Jesus is no idyllic respite. Called, then and now, Bethany Beyond the Jordan, on the Jordan side of the Jordan River, it’s a hot, dusty plain under unrelenting sun, a shelterless wilderness of tangled reeds and rock, swarming with biting flies.

As we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus when God poured down the Holy Spirit, we ask that God bless us with the grace of forgiveness.

The readings for the Baptism of the Lord have an “Epiphany” feel to them. God is revealing something about Jesus, about how to follow Jesus, and ultimately about God’s self.

In Baptism the form of Christ’s death is impressed upon [one’s] own. . . . Anybody living in the strength of Christ’s Baptism lives in the strength of Christ’s death. —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship