When I stand before this text, I hear an echo. What stands out most is the word from heaven as Jesus comes up from the water: "This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him." At another place in scripture where Jesus goes to the mountain with Peter, James, and John to "reveal" himself more pointedly in what we call the transfiguration, suddenly we hear the words of his baptism echo from heaven again: "This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him."

The echoes that reverberate from baptismal waters and off the mountain of bright light keep echoing across the ages. That echo is a gift. Knowing what we are made of, we often can't hear the first time what we need to hear, and hence the word needs to pass by us over and over again. This word from baptism to mountaintop reverberates long enough to te…