Baptism Of The Lord; Epiphany 1
This story of Jesus' baptism has manifold narrative connections in Luke's Gospel. We note first of all that verses 15-17 of this week's assigned text were part of the text appointed for the Third Sunday in Advent. (See Chapter 5.) The heart of the matter for this week, of course, is the baptism of Jesus. The main purpose of this baptismal scene would appear to be the heavenly identification of Jesus as Son of God. Our comments, therefore, will focus on this theme and its important narrative analogies to what follows.