Jesus, the Ultimate Gift
The celebration of the solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord brings the Christmas season to its liturgical end. The deeply symbolic act of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus is one of the Biblical proofs for the sacrament of Baptism, which we share with Jesus. This act of the Baptism of the Lord is a fitting end for the Christmas season. Jesus’ entered into the world at Christmas, and His baptism at the earliest stages of his public life show us that not only did God show up on this earth, he beckoned us through Baptism to join Him in a new lifestyle. This lifestyle is one of loving God and loving others. It is the critical means of salvation for all of us.
But enough theology for one Mass. By now, as we know all too well, the Christmas season will be over for us in different ways, ways that we might indeed be glad are over. Let us review the “can’t miss” rituals:
There was the joy of stringing lights and trying to get them to flash, leading to back pains, pulled muscles, and lights that devilishly flash when you hold them in your hand, and then refuse to when you put them on the tree;
There was the obsession over ornaments, how many, what kind, and how they hang from the tree, trying to balance their display on the tree only to have them fall off the tree when someone walks by;
As we go shopping, there was the joy of finding for a parking place, only to have someone else dive in front of you and snap it up, while you have to settle for a parking place a half a mile further away;
There was the joy of standing in a long line to be checked out after you have found that “perfect gift.” As you get close to being able to pay for your purchases, the person in line in front of you is trying to buy something for which there is no mysteriously no price, leading to more delays as beleaguered clerks call for help that usually does not come.
There was the joy of holding a very fragile gift in your hand as someone’s unattended children about half your height dash right in front of you as you seek to get on an escalator.
And last but not least, as you leave the mall parking lot to go home, you discover three parking places very close to the stores you just left.
Brothers and sisters, while all this was going on, the ultimate perfect gift was standing in front of us, there all along. No, it is not shopping on the Internet. It is the gift of Jesus Christ.
In our Gospel today, as John the Baptist was baptizing Jesus as well as others in the Jordan River, he reminds people that “one mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.” It is hard to imagine truer words ever being spoken.
One of the greatest joys we have as Christians is the reality that our God loved us so much that He pierced the veil between heaven and earth so that he could be with us. But Jesus as God and man did not come into our world because He was curious about us. He came into the world to conquer sin and death. He gave us everything we have. He showed us how to live. He showed us the means to follow his example and conquer sin and death ourselves. He opened the gates of heaven, and blazed a trail for us so that we could get there, too.
Even when we fail, when we reject Him, He beckons us through prayer and the sacraments to get ever closer to Him. And he forgives us, over and over again, desiring above all else that we be with Him. He is with us always. He watches over his flock, as the prophet Isaiah says, feeding us and gathering us in His arms.
This brothers and sisters is the ultimate gift because, as St. Paul says in our second reading, it is so undeserved. Despite our flaws, throughout history, Jesus has worked with people whose flaws were obvious to build up the communion of saints and the Body of Christ.
This patience with people, which I wish I had sometimes, is based on the Lord’s desire that none of us should perish but rather come to repentance. Paul obviously understood this well. He, like many of the great saints, reject Jesus’ gift for many years of their lives.
How did Jesus respond to this rejection? He forgave Paul. He went to extraordinary lengths, as He does for all of us, to ask this very ordinary, flawed man to do extraordinary things in founding the Church and spreading the message of the Gospel life to all corners of the earth. The rest, as we say, is history.
But Jesus’ undeserved gift is at work in our own time too. I share with you this morning a classic example of this. In 1923, a boy by the name of Joseph Whalen was born. He was the oldest of seven boys in a poor family that lived in the seafaring town of Quincy, Massachusetts. At the age of thirteen, Whalen was offered the chance by an uncle who was a bishop to enter study for the priesthood. He said no without giving it much thought. Like many of us, it was easy not to bother with the gift of Jesus Christ.
As he grew older, he began digging clams for a meager living. There he began to learn to drink with professional clam diggers. It was a hard life. He began to drink more and more. He also developed a two pack a day cigarette habit, Camels straight up, with no filters. With his body still young and vigorous, he survived these habits and joined the Navy and eventually learned to be a pharmacist. Often, he used his learning to make five-gallon jugs of instant gin out of ingredients for cough medicine. It was a clever way to serve his drinking habit and those of others. The young man suffered blackouts, the “shakes,” and other classic symptoms of alcoholism.
After leaving the Navy, Whalen got married and had children in spite of his alcoholism. He took on a high stress sales job, which only made his drinking worse. His children were afraid to bring friends home. His wife was constantly apologizing for him, as he staggered around and became increasingly obnoxious. His marriage ended in bitter divorce, with all of his life savings swallowed up by a legal settlement.
But the Lord did not give up on Whalen. One day the man was introduced to a cloistered nun, who told him through her gift of knowledge from the Holy Spirit that he was going to become a priest. Whalen thought she had been wearing out more than just her Rosary beads.
And yet, she turned out to be correct. When thinking about it further, tears streamed down Whelan’s face. Jesus’ amazing, one might say even stubborn, love reminded him of the offer he had been given more than thirty years earlier by his uncle. Loaded down by guilt, anger, bitterness, and remorse, he was nonetheless rescued. The nun’s friends recommended to him a recovering alcoholic priest.
For five years, this priest and others helped Whalen on a very difficult road to recovery filled with setbacks and eventual triumph. Whalen finally accepted the freely given gift of the presence of Jesus in his life. He forgave himself and those who had hurt him over the years. Through the prayers of many, he is a recovering alcoholic and he even kicked his smoking habit.
As his prayer life deepened, he began to have visions of God calling him again and again to the priesthood. He began to move toward God. After receiving an annulment from the Church, Whalen was ordained a priest in 1989 at the ripe young age of 66. He had a flourishing ministry working with alcoholics.
Brothers and sisters, each day this week, as we stoop to undo the modern-day equivalent of our own sandal straps, let us think about the Baptism of the Lord, and our own Baptism. Let us think about the ultimate gift of Jesus. We have a choice. We can chase after material gifts, with their fleeting joy and the tortured rituals that comes with getting them. Or we accept the ultimate gift of Jesus: His joy, His peace, and the blessed assurance of eternal life. This is a gift that keeps on giving, not just during the Christmas season but always and forever. Which gift will we choose?