By Victor Cancino, S.J. | America the Jesuit Review

At the end of the Christmas season, we come full circle with this Sunday’s Gospel. Just a few weeks past, on the Third Sunday of Advent, the church read this same passage with hopeful expectation for the coming messiah. “The people were filled,” says Luke, “with expectation and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ” (Lk 3:15). The focus then was on anticipation, on the ancient promise that stirred the heart in a certain direction, on a profound longing. On this Sunday’s feast, the Baptism of the Lord, the same reading directs our attention not to anticipation but to fulfillment, to the one who has already arrived on the scene, the Christ whom the Father calls “my beloved Son.” In this Sunday’s Gospel passage, Jesus finds his mission confirmed in God’s delight. Christians today have the privilege of undertaking that same mission with Jesus.