The readings in these Christmas days find us unpacking the gift we have been given. Now that we realize Christ incarnate among us, what does it mean? Why did he come? What has changed? Today’s first reading from Saint John’s first letter gets right at it: Jesus came through water and Blood and brought the Holy Spirit. And so we have water which washes away our sins through holy Baptism; the Blood of Christ which releases us from the grip of sin and death, and the Holy Spirit which sanctifies our lives so that we can become one with God. All of this made possible by the glorious incarnation of Christ, through his holy birth, which we have the grace of celebrating in these days.
Saint John the Baptist echoes that in the Gospel reading. Jesus is the mightier one that will come after him, baptizing not just with water, but with the Holy Spirit. The Baptism Jesus brings will not simply aid in the repentance of sins, as John’s baptism did, but will more importantly claim us for divinity and catch us up into God’s own life. And the testimony to this most incredible gift comes not just in the voice of someone telling us something important, or even the words of a man on the pages of a book, but from the mouth of God himself: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
And so in these Christmas days, as we continue to unwrap and appreciate the greatest gift we will ever get, we find ourselves reflecting on our own holy Baptism, remembering our sins washed away in the Blood of Christ, open to the Spirit who longs to fill us with his grace.