The baptism of Jesus is the inauguration of the public ministry of the man described in the earlier introduction as the new Moses and as the son who had the privilege of seeing the Father face-to-face in his "quality time" moments of prayer."
Luke places Jesus' genealogy (recall how challenging that list of names is for so many lectors and priests(!)) just before the actual baptism. From the evangelist's writing we do learn that Jesus was about 30 years old at the time of his baptism. An interesting observation: at that age Jesus had attained the right to public activity.
It is interesting that Luke's genealogy travels backwards from Jesus to "son of Adam" but then adds "son of God." The reason for this is, as the Pope notes, to bring emphasis to the "universal scope of Jesus' mission" (p 10). And, as the son of Adam, he is the son of man thus joining us to him and himself to us. The Holy Father sees this unity between humankind and Jesus as an expression of our beginning anew our humanity which reaches its destiny in the Son of God.
Tomorrow we will look at the other important figure in the baptism: John the Baptist.
