Baptism of the Lord, Year A

[My servant] will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
     a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
~Isaiah 43:2-3

The image from Isaiah—the first of the “servant” passages offers this breathtaking image of compassion, care, and gentleness: a bruised reed he will not break, nor snuff out a wick in danger of losing its fire. And yet, justice is the ultimate end of this tenderness. The contexts for both the ancient poet and our own share more than we would like to acknowledge. Black and brown bodies continue to be targeted by state actors. Our queer children and siblings are increasingly marginalized by policies that threaten their well-being. Our own leaders occupy the news programs with their neo-imperial message that we have every right to invade whichever countries we wish, to take and take whatever we want as long as we have the arms to do so. Abuses of power and callous demostrations of force are seemingly divorced from the well-being of people. We might wonder about the link between compassionate care and acquisitiveness, how the one can follow from the other.
 
And yet, here it is. Our Christian story suggests that the way to justice somehow travels through the wildernesses of vulnerability. This exposure is not something we want to achieve or experience. We do not seek it or praise it. But there is something about knowing vulnerability that can awaken in us a sense of the possible, of a dying to self that rebirths us as agents of solidarity, as the body of Christ in the world in which God genuinely delights.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Isaiah 42:1-9 † Psalm 29 † Acts 10:34-43 † Matthew 3:13-17
 
About the Art: Zelenka, Dave. Baptism of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56385 [retrieved January 6, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptism-of-Christ.jpg.​

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