The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Survey 2024 revealed a major decline in public contentment with democratic systems among the 26 countries that were surveyed.[1] With this information in mind, one observes an increase in violent uprisings around the world, most of which have been led by the Gen Z population. Most of those discontent with the status quo are asking for justice. As it is common, some equate vengeance with justice. They want those they perceive to have wronged them to be punished. It is as if a culture of retributive justice is shaping how our world understands a proper response to unethical policies and failed social systems.
Beneath these movements lies a common cry: a demand for justice. In this cultural moment—where retributive instincts increasingly shape political and social discourse—the Prophet Isaiah offers a radically different vision. The text from Isaiah (42:1-4, 6-7) offers a different vision of justice. Rather than grounding justice in a retributive vision or one that seeks to diminish the lives of others, especially those who are judged to be agents of social harm, the Prophet Isaiah offers a vision of the chosen one who shall usher in a different type of justice. But what makes this type of justice different from what we are familiar with? As Peter R. Ackroyd notes in his commentary on the text, such justice is not based on the law, for such an understanding narrows the scope of justice. Also, neither is it to be equated with religion. Religion, as we have come to understand it, tends to produce boundaries of exclusion unless a turn to inclusive spirituality is embraced. Rather, it speaks to the “establishing of the true rights of all persons.”[2]
While religious rituals are necessary and do speak to the fact that the human person is a creature defined by rituals, religion itself is never an end in itself. Rather, it points to a higher truth: the flourishing of God’s creatures in the world, which serves as the platform for ritualizing abundant life for all. In other words, religion serves as an aid to bringing about flourishing of all, humans and non-humans.
The Prophet presents a vision of one who embodies the true praxis of justice. This person instantiates justice not through a scarcity mindset that seeks to diminish the other in order to advance the interests of one; rather, this person is herself an incarnation of the covenantal bond that unites all to God, making possible a new horizon where life is experienced in abundance. Why does the Church seek to reflect on this text on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord? The catechetical definition of Baptism is that it is a sacrament which washes away our sins, makes us
Christians, children of God, and members of the Church.[1] In other words, it renews us in Christ so that we can become to each other that which Christ first became for creation – symbols of new life and the instantiation of abundance in the world.
To speak of one becoming a covenant of the people, and a light for the nations, is not in the domain of just metaphorical language. Rather, this is what Baptism evokes in the life of a Christian. I must say, though, that Isaiah was not speaking for the Christian world. He was speaking to the biblical Israelites. But since Christianity stands on the shoulders of Jewish religious heritage, one can argue that Isaiah’s vision is relevant to both the Christian faith and the contemporary world we live in.
Having said this, permit me to ask you, my readers, a reflective question, when was the last time you fully embraced the joy and gratitude that comes from knowing that God in Christ has formed you into a covenantal being that brings comfort to the world, a witness of transformative joy for those who encounter you, an embodiment of encounters that lifts those who lament unto the pedestal of abundance?
Permit me to be intimate with you here. Each time I recall my own baptism, which was on April 15, 1984, I have been lucky, through God’s own grace, I am drawn back to the joy I experienced as a young boy welcomed into the Christian community at a small outstation church in Benin City, Nigeria. The joy of baptism is a real grace that God bestows on each of us to help guide us, like a gentle hand, always through the journey of life. It is also the grace that shines like a gentle guiding light helping to lead others as well into the horizon of abundant life. Such joy is never to be hidden or held on too tightly. In gratitude, it is meant to be shared with others. This is the power of witnessing, to let go of that which we hold dearly so that others can also experience abundant life. I should also note that this call to witness through the baptismal joy and gratitude is not some platonic way of being. Rather, it is about facing evil in the face and insisting that it will not have the last word in our social discourse. It is to say to all enablers of social systems of violence that there is a different way of being in the world, one that makes possible the flourishing of all. It is to say that we are a ‘tomorrow people.’ Even when such witnessing may be done in the face of the power of empire, God’s supportive grace never leaves those who embrace their baptismal commitments fully. As tomorrow people, we always look at the redemptive power of hope which summons all into the horizon of new beginnings. Baptism is all about new beginnings. The grace of forgiveness, of theosis, of membership in the community of Christ, and of a witness to the transforming grace of new life in Christ that the baptized receives through baptism points to the invitation offered to all to embrace the gift of new beginnings. Just as we are given the gift of new beginnings, we are invited to become that for others. For the orphaned, we are invited to be new beginnings in the form of offering them a new family. To the poor, we are called to become a source of support so that they can experience the power of an abundant life anew.
That said, the readings for the Baptism of the Lord are not meant to be read within the context of the liturgy only. Rather, they serve as a guide for how to be Christians in the world. Baptism orients the Christian towards the works of mercy that ought to be carried out in the concrete contexts where Christians live. Thus, to embrace the baptismal commitment, a Christian ought to become a symbol of transformation in the world. She is to open the eyes of those who are blind. Blindness is not just about sight. Not to see the dignity of one’s neighbor is to experience social blindness. Not to consider how political and economic policies affect the vulnerable ones in society is to experience existential blindness. To address these, a Christian ought to educate herself on how social systems operate in the world and how they can diminish the lives of some in society. They should also make an effort, according to their means, to address these issues. Indifference is not an option.
The vocation of a Christian is to ask the thick questions and to insist on deeper analyses of social realities. The contemporary United States is plagued by a culture of unethical incarceration of people. As of 2025, over 1.9 million individuals were imprisoned in the country.[1] The thick question we should be asking is this: What are the social structures shaping the lives of people that make them end up in jail? To bring out prisoners from confinement, as proclaimed by Isaiah, demands that we work actively at addressing the social system of incarceration and ensure that it is grounded in a vision and praxis of transformative justice. Only through transformative justice can a culture of human flourishing be instantiated, even for those who may have committed crimes.
To be an embodiment of the covenantal bond is to ensure that what we become through baptism, we mediate for others. Baptism gives us the gift of visibility. Before God, we become visible not as sinners but as transformed children, adopted siblings of Christ. We become an alter Christus for the world. In this capacity, we ought to become the light that makes visible those who are held captive by the social darkness of erasures. In today’s world, those who are considered ‘illegal immigrants’ are living in fear among us. They are socially invisible, and many are being exploited by those who uphold the social systems currently in place. Our baptismal commitment as an embodied covenant is a reminder to us to upend the current legalistic way of being in society. Like the chosen one in Isaiah’s vision, the baptized are reminded that their lives ought to reflect the instantiation of a new type of justice that goes beyond the borders of state, culture, religion, and ideologies. Going beyond is how a covenant becomes a pathway of envisioning a new order, a new way of being human in the world. To live as a covenant is to imagine—and enact—a new social order, one faithful to the God who desires abundant life for all creation.
Permit me to end this reflection with a prayer. May our fidelity to Christ, in whose baptism we realize the fullness of our humanity, be a source from which we enact the ritual of going beyond the status quo by offering a kind word to those who grieve, a helping hand to those plagued by social deprivations, and a room to those who experience houselessness. Together, may we all become a covenant for all in our world. Amen.
Bibliography
1 Jacob Pushter, Maria Smerkovich, Moira Fagan, and Andrew Prozorovsky, “Free Expression Seen as Important Globally, but Not Everyone Thinks Their Country Has Press, Speech and Internet Freedoms,” Pew Research Center (2025): 48 – 60.
2 Peter R. Ackroyd, “The Book of Isaiah,” in The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible. Including the Apocrypha with General Articles, ed. Charles M. Laymon (Nashville and New York: Abingdon Press, 1971), 356.
3 Catechism of the Catholic Church, ##1262 – 1274, https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_one/article_1/vii_the_grace_of_baptism.html.
4 “Imprisonment Statistics in the U.S 2025/Prison Facts,” The Global Statistics, https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/united-states-imprisonment-statistics/