Friends, welcome to Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an

apostolate dedicated to the mission of evangelization using media both old and

new to share the faith on every continent and to facilitate an encounter with

Christ and His Church. The efforts of Word on Fire engage the culture and bring

the transformative power of God's Word where it is most needed. Today we invite

you to join Bishop Robert Barron as he preaches the gospel and shares the

warmth and light of Christ with each one of us.

Peace be with you. Friends, we come today to this great feast of the baptism of

the Lord. Jesus baptized by John. Here's first thing to realize. The gospel

writers compel us as it were to pass through John to get to Jesus. What I mean is

all four gospels give us a version of Jesus' baptism by John. Somehow we have to

deal with him to understand fully what Jesus is about. And here's the second

thing to realize about the baptism of Jesus by John. It was embarrassing to the

early church. Why do I say that? Well, the early church is interested in presenting

Jesus as the Son of God, the incarnate Word, the Immaculate Messiah of Israel, but

people were coming to John for a baptism of repentance. They were coming as

sinners to John. So the fact that Jesus is coming to John to be baptized would

have been a source of embarrassment or puzzlement for the early church. Why

would the incarnate Son of God be seeking out such a baptism? But here's the

thing though. It is the very embarrassment of the baptism that in many ways is

the point. You're the old spiritual saying that were you stumble? That's what

you dig for treasure. What applies here, it's like it's a stumbling block and all

...