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Msgr. Ratermann is a founder of the Latin America Apostolate, and served in Bolivia from 1956 to 2008.
 (John is John and I am Jesus; we’re related, but we’re not the same.)
Is. 55:1-11: “Come for water without paying! Listen to me and you will live!”
1 Jn. 5:1-9: “The spirit, the water and the blood.”
Mk. 1:7-11: “You are my beloved son; in you I am well pleased!”
Jesus goes to John for baptism. What’s that all about? Shouldn’t John go to Jesus? Jesus is all-HOLY! In the first place, Jesus is in continuity with John. Jesus has to authorize and confirm John in his mission. Jesus is doing it (with signs): “I am indeed the Savior, whom John has been announcing! John is out here in the desert to announce my mission; however, John can’t do my mission. I alone can do it! My mission is different! My mission is to take upon myself the sins of all the people and remove all sins! I have to be baptized by John to make it clear that I make myself the main sinner, the one who assumes the weight and the responsibility for all the sins of the world. ‘I am the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!’ My mission is different! John demands penance! I offer pardon! John is for fasting! I’m for feasting! John is for mortification! I’m for liberation! The time has come! The Kingdom is here! The Kingdom is among you! Yet you must accept and embrace it with all your soul! When you do embrace the Kingdom with all your heart, you are really embracing me...” says Jesus. Or, in other words: “You can’t really embrace me without embracing the Kingdom,” says Jesus.
Where do we stand? Is our mission that of John, the Baptizer? Or should we rather embrace the mission of Jesus himself? I do believe that God and the Church are calling us to both missions. It is not an “either or” situation; rather it is a “both and” situation!
 John, the Baptizer is a bridge, a link between Jesus and those who are longing for Jesus, perhaps without even knowing that Jesus is the fulfillment of their longing. Jesus is God-made-Man, the Savior whom we all know well. As we strive to follow Jesus, to become ever more truly his disciples, we will be fulfilling the mission of John. We will become a bridge, a link between Jesus and those who know him very little or not at all; and we will also be living and spreading the Saving Mission of Jesus. The more authentically we manage to follow Jesus with the help of the Spirit, so much the more clearly shall we be announcing Jesus and his Kingdom of peace, justice and love. We shall at the same time be living in that Kingdom of peace, justice and love. Living in the Kingdom is, without a doubt, the best way of announcing that Kingdom!
What do we need to fulfill such a glorious mission? We need the very same grace, strength, light and love which the Lord Jesus received at his baptism. At the solemn moment of his baptism in the Jordan river, in a way the official beginning of his ministry, He did receive all that He needed: God, the Father, spoke to Him those beautiful and powerful words: “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Holy Spirit, taking the form of a dove, hovered over Jesus, thus confirming the words of the Father and the Mission of Jesus.
Sisters and brothers, this is precisely what we receive at the moment of our Baptism. The Father says: “You are my son, the beloved; you are my daughter, the beloved; in you I am well pleased!” Jesus says to us: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men and women!” The Holy Spirit hovers over us and makes us the temple in which He is well pleased to dwell!
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