The Power Hidden in Your Baptism

Robin Waters – Homily  
Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026 – 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A, Cycle 2  
Isaiah 49:3, 5-6, Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-10, 1 Corinthians 1:1-3, John 1:29-34 


This short verse from the Gospel of John expresses the most amazing, unexpected, and unbelievable thing that has ever happened in human history. Jesus Christ, God Himself, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Son of God the Father, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, took on flesh and dwelt among us, and the way He did this is even more incredible.

He could have come into the world in any way He wanted. The Jews expected Him to come as a powerful king, but He chose just the opposite. God chose to come into the world as a weak, vulnerable baby boy, born of a virgin no less. He chose to come as part of a family, cared for by His mother, Mary, and His foster father, Joseph. Together they formed the Holy Family, and He lived and grew up as a normal boy and man for the first thirty years of His life. Then, in only three years of ministry, He changed the world forever while He trained and spiritually formed a group of uneducated, ordinary men whom He personally selected to be the foundation of His Church.

Jesus Christ, the Creator of the universe, could have come into the world instantly, in majesty, as a full-grown man, all-powerful and invincible, ready to use His powers as God to conquer the enemies of Israel. But He didn’t do it that way, because He had a bigger enemy to conquer, an enemy stronger than any army or country that ever existed or ever could exist, an enemy that had oppressed the human race since Adam and Eve. The enemy Jesus came to conquer and destroy forever was sin and death. Sin, the thing that separates us from God, and death, not physical death, we will all die physically, but true death, which is eternal separation from God in hell.

As God, Jesus knew that while worldly enemies and oppressors are very bad and create terrible suffering, they are not eternal like our souls are. He knew that the results of their evil, however painful and vile they may be, are temporary and are nothing compared to eternal separation from God. Jesus knew that sin and death are the true enemies of every human being. Jesus speaks very clearly on this in the Gospel of Matthew 10:28, where He said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.”

But how did He do this? How did He defeat sin and death? Just as He came into the world, He saved us from sin and death in an equally unexpected and unbelievable way. Jesus did it by sacrificing Himself on the Cross for the sins of each one of us, once for all time, but He didn’t stop there. Through the Church He started, the Catholic Church, He provides the means of incorporating us into His life, of sharing His life with us, the life of God, and of us growing in holiness through His grace.

We call this means of receiving His holiness and grace that defeat sin and death the Sacraments. He gave us seven: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.

These are the vehicles by which we receive the gift of Sanctifying Grace, that is, the grace that makes us holy. These seven Sacraments cover every aspect of our life of faith and are the primary ways, along with prayer and Sacred Scripture, that we develop and grow a strong relationship with Jesus.

The method that Jesus uses to do this starts with the Sacrament of Baptism, the first of the Sacraments, and the one our readings from Scripture today focus on. This Sacrament starts the process of defeating sin and death in each of our lives by filling us with the Holy Spirit, bringing us into the Body of Christ, the Church, by removing all our sins, both original and personal sin, and by permanently marking us as adopted children of God the Father and brothers and sisters to Jesus Himself. Baptism makes us part of God’s family, not just believers or worshipers, but family.

St. Paul spoke of this today in his first letter to the Corinthians when he said, “You who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.”

Yes, as baptized Christians, we are all called to be holy, but because of our own personal weaknesses that cause us to struggle to resist the influences of the world and those of the devil, in addition to the inclination to sin that every human inherits because of the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, even though we are called to holiness, throughout our lives we all commit sins. The good news is that, as with all things, God provides what we need to be cleansed of any sin. All we have to do is humbly come before the Lord and ask His forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance, or Confession. Through this Sacrament, we are not only forgiven of our sins but also reconciled with the Lord and His Church and strengthened by His grace to avoid sin in the future.

Okay, so what I’m about to say may be something you already know, but it’s not something we reflect on very often. We get so busy in our everyday lives that we become distracted and forget the incredible, or should I say eternal, importance and power of the gifts and grace God gave us through our Baptism. So let me help reconnect the dots.

In the Catechism, paragraph 1216 says that “Baptism is God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift.” Paragraph 1272 goes on to say that “Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark of belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation.” In other words, after Baptism, we belong to Christ, and He will never reject us, but we are still free to choose to reject Him.

One of the most interesting testimonies on the power of Baptism that I have ever heard came from a friend of mine. He gave me permission to share his story. Growing up, both of his parents were drug addicts and eventually became drug dealers. They had no faith life and never went to church or prayed. When he was in high school, his dad taught him how to do drugs. Soon, he dropped out of high school and took up the family business of dealing drugs. Eventually, he was arrested and sentenced to twenty years in the state penitentiary.

When he entered the prison, initially, he was in a holding cell with about forty other men. There was one large, menacing man in the group who was about 6’5” tall and weighed at least 275 lbs. Physically, he was ripped, solid muscle. He had a bald head and had horns implanted in his skull so that he looked like the devil. He was going around the room, threatening and intimidating the other men and forcing them to tell him, “Hail Satan.” All the prisoners were terrified of him, and when he came to them, they just looked away and did as he said. My friend was terrified as well, but when the man came and told him to say, “Hail Satan,” my friend didn’t turn away but, for some strange reason, looked him in the eye. As his eyes met the eyes of this very evil man, my friend said that he did not see strength but was shocked to see fear in his eyes. Before he could even say anything, the man moved on to bully someone else. He was confused as to why the man had seemed scared when he looked him in the eye but was grateful that he was leaving him alone.

Sometime later, in prison, my friend started reading the Bible and eventually entered RCIA to become a Catholic. When the time came for him to come into the Church, he called his mother and told her that he was becoming a Catholic and would be baptized soon.

Then his mother told him something that he had never known. She said, “There’s no need for you to be baptized. I grew up Catholic and took you to the local Catholic Church and had you baptized when you were just two weeks old.”

After speaking with his mother, he went back to his cell and reflected on his life and all the bad decisions he had made and the sinful things he had done that landed him in prison, and how blessed he was just to be alive. He felt that, as a baptized child of God, even in his sinfulness, God must have provided him some level of protection. Then he remembered the evil man in the holding cell a few years earlier and realized why he saw fear in his eyes. This man who worshiped the devil feared him because he could see that he was a child of God. In his eyes, he could see the Holy Spirit.

He felt that even though his mother had made a lot of bad decisions in her life as well, her faith-filled decision to have him baptized at two weeks old preserved him so that he could one day become a man of God, and today that’s just what he is. He’s a very faithful Catholic man of God with a good job, a wife, and two children, and he credits everything he has in life to the gift of Baptism his mother gave him when he was two weeks old, filling him with the Holy Spirit and making him a child of God. He believes that through the power of his Baptism, God protected him from the evil that surrounded him in his younger years. His story is a great reminder that after Baptism, God will never give up on us; He will always be calling us to Himself.

Today, I see in him a man who has all the qualities and abilities that would make a great deacon. I see these same qualities and abilities in many of our men here at St. Mary’s. If becoming a deacon is something that you have ever thought about, or someone has suggested to you, I encourage you to pray about it, because prayer is the only way you will ever be able to discern God’s calling for you, whatever it may be. At least that’s my experience.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the Church, Jesus has given us everything we need to live the life He is calling us to live, a life that won’t be dominated by sin and death, but by holiness and life. That’s why Jesus, the Word, was made flesh and dwelt among us. That’s why He came. We can say no. We can make worldly things in life more important than Him; it’s our choice, but why? What’s the point? Nothing can satisfy, nothing can heal, nothing can provide happiness like the Lord. Don’t believe the lies of the world. Don’t settle for less. Turn to God and cry out in all humility.

Here I am, Lord; I come to do Your will. Amen.