Sunday Reflection: Be Born Again through Words of God

At that time Jesus arrived from Galilee and came to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. But John tried to make him change his mind. “I ought to be baptized by you,” John said, “and yet you have come to me!”

But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires.” So John agreed. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water. Then heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and lighting on him. Then a voice said from heaven, “This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased.”

Matthew 3:13-17

REFLECTION:

As I listen to the reading this afternoon there were lots of realizations that came into my mind. Jesus Christ who is the Son of God knelt and bowed so John the Baptist could baptize Him. John was surprised by this action that he had said out loud that it should be him (John) who must be baptized by Jesus and not the other way around. But Jesus said “Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires.”

Jesus Christ who is greatly above us all had humbled himself and not only that he had taken away our sins and sacrificed himself to die in the cross. Jesus the Great, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the King – He had done the things that were all required of Him by God the Father. But how about us? Are we willing to do the things that are required of us? Shouldn’t we be ashamed of ourselves that we who are saved by this One Great Son of God from our sins are not doing our part as Christian and worse than that we are not exerting even the least of effort to improve ourselves to become a better person?

Changing and improving ourselves is not an overnight process. The temptation of sins is so strong that even though we intend to move away from it we can’t still win over our own weakness and we will just find ourselves committing again the same mistakes. We are being pulled back over and over again. Now the thing is, we really can’t repair the thing that has been damaged. It’s like gluing together the pieces of a shattered vase. You can make it look like whole again but it will be frail and useless. One wrong move and it will just get broken again, much worse and splintered than before. So what will you do then? You will get rid of that vase and will buy a new one, much better, much beautiful and much functional.

To change for the better is to get rid of our own damaged and wasted self, and be born again into a new person who is much better, much beautiful and much purposeful. It’s sort of saying, kill your old self and let your new self be born and that is through the Holy Spirit. Now I didn’t mean you to take the “kill your old self” literally, it means that we all have to get rid of our old self by an inner transformation that can only happen through our personal relationship with the Lord. We have mentioned here being born again. In Catholic Church when were baptized as baby, we were born again and washed clean from our sins. But as we grow old, we commit again sins and in able to be washed clean from it we must submit ourselves to the Lord and be baptized through the Holy Spirit. Baptizing is more than just the ceremony, like what the priest said this afternoon, baptizing is not about religion, it’s all about faith. As we are baptized, we are receiving the Holy Spirit and we are welcoming the Lord to our heart and this is where the inner transformation begin, thus we are being born again and become a new person. 

Let's all strive to change for the better and keep planting the Words of God to our heart. In this way we are starting a new and exciting transformation within us and we are beginning to fulfill all that are being required of us by the Lord our God.