Today, while all Judea and Jerusalem went to John to be baptized, something new occurs: Jesus Christ is among a gray crowd of sinners waiting on the banks of the Jordan. But what did Jesus do? From the cross and the resurrection it was clear for Christians what had happened.

Jesus assumed the guilt of all mankind; with it, he came to the Jordan. He began his public life taking the sinners’ place. He began with the anticipation of the cross. The baptism is the acceptance of death for the sins of mankind; the voice from heaven (“Thou art my beloved Son”) is an early reference to the resurrection. The baptism of Jesus is understood as a compendium of the whole history, which takes up the past and anticipates the future.

—I would like, Lord, to go to the place of your baptism and thus, with your interpretation with men, receive my interpretation with you to please the Father.