Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

When Jesus calls his first disciples, he stirs the "imago Dei," the image of God, in them. They realize that they will find themselves only in surrendering to the one who will make them fishers of men. We hear the same call from the same Christ.

John hesitates before baptizing the Lord, saying, "It is I who should be baptized by you." The great surprise--that we have been wrestling with for two millenia--is that God's greatness is a function of his humility, his willingness to stand shoulder to shoulder in the muck of sin with the likes of us. That we have such a God, a friend of sinners, is the reason for our hope.

The scene of the baptism of Jesus described in the Gospel of Matthew is a theophany, a showing forth of the being of God. The Father crying out from heaven; the Son standing in the water with us sinners; the Spirit hovering.

The journey of these wise men is a metaphor for the spiritual journeys that all of us must make. Like the magi, we must be attentive; we must be willing to act; we must expect opposition; we must give our best to Christ, and finally, we must be willing to change, "to go back by a different route."