I couldn’t help but start dancing at the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing”.
The man is Ireneusz Krosny (born 1968), a Polish actor and mime artist.
He received several top awards at comedy festivals in Poland, and also had his own television shows there. He began his international career in 1997, performing throughout Europe as well as in North America and Asia. In the USA he received the Critic’s Choice Award from The Chicago Reader. Click here for his website.
The people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ. John answered them all, saying, “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
The account of Jesus’ baptism is significant for at least two reasons:
(1)The Baptism of our Lord by St. John the Baptist is one of several instances in the Old and New Testaments (see also Genesis 1:26, John 5:7, and Matthew 28) when the nature of the Triune Godhead is revealed as the confounding mystery of three Persons in one God, which our greatest theologians had sought in vain to plumb.
St. Thomas Aquinas concluded in Summa Theologica:
We cannot come to the knowledge of the Trinity by reason alone, that is, by the natural and unaided efforts of the human mind. By our natural reason, we can know that God exists; that he is the First Cause of all; that he is one, infinite, simple, immutable, etc. But that the one God subsists in three really distinct Persons is a truth that can be known only by supernatural means. That is a truth beyond the reach of human reason to know, to prove, or to disprove. We know this truth by divine revelation, and accept it by supernatural faith; we take it upon the authority of God himself.… By aid of the light of glory the soul in heaven sees God himself clearly and truly.
And so we accept our human limitation and believe, putting our trust in the words of St. Paul that we shall understand fully when we see God face to face:
1 Corinthians 13:11-12
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
(2) Luke 3’s account also speaks to the importance that Jesus holds for Baptism. Though a sacrament meant for sinful humanity, the sinless Son of God chose to be baptized before He began His public ministry.
These are St. Paul’s words on Baptism:
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” -Romans 6:3-4
“But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” -1 Corinthians 6:11
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” -Galatians 3:27
Baptism purifies and sanctifies (makes holy) the person, making him/her a dwelling of the Holy Spirit. That means that without Baptism, a person is without the Holy Spirit and rendered defenseless against the evil one.
I don’t know what other Christian denominations believe about baptism, but in the Catholic Church — notwithstanding its many flaws, including the terrible sins committed by its clergy — the sacrament of Baptismis an act of exorcism:
Since Baptism signifies liberation from sin and from its instigator the devil, one or more exorcisms are pronounced over the candidate. The celebrant then anoints him with the oil of catechumens, or lays his hands on him, and he explicitly renounces Satan. (#1237 of Catechism of the Catholic Church)
In this manner, through the exorcizing sacrament of Baptism, “all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam’s sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God.”
Moreover, through Baptism we receive the gift of grace from the Holy Trinity — to believe in God, to love Him, and to grow in goodness. In other words, the whole organism of the Christian’s supernatural life has its roots in Baptism.
So if you are a Christian, don’t make the mistake of postponing the baptism of your child(ren) like a friend of mine who, although he is a non-denomination Protestant and thinks of himself as quite devout, married a shallow woman with no religious beliefs. He spoke of the marriage as a mistake. They produced a daughter, now 30 years old with degrees in art and animation, and still living with her parents. My friend neither had his daughter baptized nor brought her to church services. When I asked him why, he said he wanted to leave it up to her to decide for herself when she’s an adult.
But in so doing, my friend rendered his daughter defenseless against the rampant dark forces of popular culture. Evidence of that contamination includes disturbing images she drew and posted to Instagram, including that of a goat’s head (or Baphomet) that she named “Menace of the goat king”, and a drawing for her business card of a demonic girl (herself) with two skulls.
Baptism — clothing your child “with Christ” — is the most important thing you can and will ever do for your child.
May the peace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,
The hysteria surrounding the Wuhan virus has made some people stark-raving mad. Example:
Quick summary: A woman stuffed her 13-year-old, COVID-positive son into the trunk of her car to drive him to a Wuhan virus test site. Apparently she believed the trunk situaion was warranted in order to avoid being exposed to the virus. She’s now facing child endangerment charges.
The woman, a teacher, has been placed on administrative leave from her school district.
You can’ read all the details here about this story here.
What happened to this woman’s momma bear instincts? You have a sick child and you take care of them, comfort them, and by no means stuff them in the trunk of a car!
Alas, between the never-ending hysteria and hype surrounding this virus, some people just lose all of their common sense and caring instincts. Terrible.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.”
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way.
The Oxford Dictionaries defines “ephiphany” (with a small “e”) as “a moment of sudden revelation or insight” and “a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being”. The word “Epiphany” (with a capital “E”) refers to “the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi”.
Today is the great feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates the adoration of Jesus by the Magi — an event that had been foretold in Isaiah 60:1-6 some 800 years before the birth of Christ.
Isaiah 60:1-6
Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you…. Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance. Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you…. Then…the wealth of nations shall be brought to you. Caravans of camels shall fill you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the praises of the Lord.
The Magiwere wise men, non-Hebrew pagans from the East. Bearing gifts fit for a king — those of gold, frankincense, and myrrh — their coming to Jerusalem to pay homage to “the king of the Jews” shows that they sought, in the messianic light of the Christmas star, the one who will be king of all nations.
It is noteworthy that the first creatures to see the newborn Jesus were his human parents, Mary and Joseph; angels on high; humble farm animals; lowly shepherds; and Gentiles — the Magi.
The Epiphany, therefore, signifies the manifestation of Jesus as Son of God and Savior of the world, not just the Old Testament‘s oft-prophesied messiah of the Jews. God is not a tribal deity, exclusive to only the so-called “chosen people”. Jesus the Christ came for Jews and Gentiles. He came for all of us, no matter our race, gender, language, country, or creed.
AsSt. Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians 3:6:
[T]he Gentiles are coheirs,
members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise
in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Noteworthy also is the fact that the Magi, as the first Gentiles to find Jesus, were also the first Gentiles to receive His salvific grace. As recounted in Matthew 2:12:
And having been warned in a dream
not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country
by another way.
By the way, astronomers, using software programs reproducing the night sky exactly as it was thousands of years ago, have determined there really was a Christmas Staror Star of Bethlehem — another empirical or scientific confirmation of biblical accounts. David Reneke, news editor of Australia’s Sky and Space Magazine, said: “We found out something startling. It looks like the ‘Christmas star’ really did exist.”
It’s generally accepted by most researchers that Christ was born between 3 BC and 1 AD. On 12 August, 3 BC, Jupiter and Venus appeared very close together just before sunrise, appearing as bright morning stars. It would have been visible in the eastern dawn sky of the Middle East from about 3:45 to 5:20 a.m.
But it didn’t stop there. The crowning touch came ten months later, on 17 June 2 BC, Venus and Jupiter joined up again in the constellation Leo. This time the two planets were so close that, without the use of our modern telescopes and other optical aids, they would have looked like one single, brilliant star.
Venus is known as the planet of love, Jupiter the planet of kings, and Leo denotes royalty and power.
How appropriate that these heavenly bodies were pointing to the birth of Jesus the Christ — the King of kings, Lord of lords, the salvific God of love who became human in order to suffer and die for our redemption.
Did you know that last year on December 21, the Christmas star reappeared when the two largest planets in our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, seemed to almost merge in Earth’s night sky, just 0.1 degrees apart or a mere one-fifth the width of the Moon. The two planets were closer than they were in almost 800 years, since 1226 A.D., when Genghis Khan was conquering large swaths of Asia, and Europe was still generations away from the Renaissance. (Astronomy)
The next Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn will occur in 2080, 58 years from now.
Below is a picture of the 2020 Christmas star viewed from Jerusalem looking toward Bethlehem (source: Earl Tucker Dickerson):
For other passages in the Old Testament foretelling the incarnation of the Second Person of the Triune Godhead, see my post “Sunday Devotional: He shall be peace“.
May the joy of the Epiphany and the peace and love of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, be with you!
