Why is Jesus baptized? He is sinless and has nothing of which to repent. He does not need to be baptized. Nevertheless, at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus dramatically demonstrates his solidarity with sinful Israel by going into the same waters that the repentant crowds have been entering. In this way, Jesus shows that he has come to unite himself with sinners, and he foreshadows how he will bear the sins of humanity at the climax of his mission on the cross.

According to the Catechism, Jesus “allows himself to be numbered among sinners; he is already ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.’ Already he is anticipating the ‘baptism’ of his bloody death”. Catechism 536).

He is coming to “fulfill all righteousness." That is, he is submitting himself entirely to the Father’s will: Out of love, he consents to this baptism of death for the remission of our sins. The Father’s voice responds to His Son’s acceptance, proclaiming his entire delight in His Son. The Spirit whom Jesus possessed in fullness from his conception comes to “rest on him.” Jesus will be the source of the Spirit for all mankind. At his baptism “the heavens were opened” – the heavens that Adam’s sin had closed – and the waters were sanctified by the descent of Jesus and the Spirit, a prelude to the new creation.

In this sense, Jesus and John act in accord with the Father’s plan and “fulfill all righteousness.” Looking at Christ’s baptism in light of the cross and resurrection, Christians can see that “Jesus loaded all mankind’s guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross.”

St. Cyril of Jerusalem reflects the Patristic tradition of seeing the story of Noah and the flood as prefiguring Jesus and his baptism. As the dove of Noah’s ark signified the renewed peace between God and man, so the dove descending on Christ points to the reconciliation he will bring about between God and all humanity. “Just as salvation came in the time of Noah by the wood and the water, there was the beginning of a new creation, and as the dove came back to Noah in the evening with an olive branch, so, they say, the Holy Spirit came down on the true Noah, the Author of the new creation, when the spiritual dove came down upon Him at His baptism to show that He is the One Who, by the wood of the cross, confers salvation on all believers, and Who, toward the evening, by his death, gave the world the grace of salvation.” *

*St. Cyril of Jerusalem, The Bible and the Liturgy

(Source: The Gospel of Matthew, Catholic commentary on Sacred Scripture, Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri)