GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The Baptism of the Lord (First Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Is 42: 1 – 4, 6 – 7/ Ps 29 / Acts 10: 34 – 38 / Lk 3: 15 – 16, 21 – 22

We are a people of great expectations! This is the reason why people flock the Itim na Nazareno sa Quiapo every 9^th of January and the Santo Niño in Cebu every 3^rd Sunday of January because through their intercessions, they will bring to reality our expectations in life. However, sometimes reality does not live up to our expectations. What we hope for is not given to us. That is why when expectations fail, we either say, “Mahirap talaga umasa sa mga taong paasa” or post in our FB wall, “WTF! – Wala Talagang Forever!”

This is also the case in our Gospel narrative today. Right at the beginning of the story, Luke tells us that the people were “filled with expectation and were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Messiah.” But reality did not live up to their expectation. John tells them straight that it is not about him but about Jesus. “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming.” In fact, to highlight this point, Luke, unlike in Matthew and Mark, never mentions about John baptizing the Lord. Rather, Luke attributes Jesus’ baptism to the work of God himself.

Since the people’s expectations were not met in reality, we see their reaction in the fourth chapter of Luke vv. 16 – 30. Right at the start of Jesus’ public ministry, people from his own place rejected him. Their Messiah cannot be someone who lives like them.

Contrast to the people’s failed expectation is the Father’s delight in his Son when a voice was heard from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

In our relationship with God, we too have a lot of expectations. We expect that God will be like this and like that. We expect that God is like Google na alam lahat ang sagot sa mga katanungan sa buhay. We expect that God is like Facebook na like ng like nalang sa mga posts natin sa buhay. And so, when reality does not live up to our expectations from God, then, like the people in the Gospel, we also reject him. We run away from Him.

My dear friends, we expect a lot from God. However, have we also asked ourselves, what are God’s expectations to my life? We have to remind ourselves, that during our own Baptism, the heavens also opened and God has also claimed us to be his own. Thus, we realize that God too is expecting something from us – that we become like his Son who according to our second reading today, “went about doing good and healing all that we oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

As we end the season of Christmas and begin the Ordinary time, let us ask ourselves, “Have we lived up to God’s expectations? Is our present reality a fulfillment of God’s expectation to be like his Son?” If after many years of attending the novena Masses at the Basilica and waiting for hours just to touch the image of the Holy Child, we are still negligent and irresponsible as a father, mother, husband, wife, student, religious, and as a Christian, then, we have not yet lived up to God’s expectation as his children.

We are a people of great expectations. Thus, what do you expect from God? But let me also ask you the other side of the coin, what does God expect from you? Amen.

Photo taken from  http://assets8.classicfm.com/2012/16/handel-messiah-1334753405-article-0.jpg