In his Introduction, Pope Benedict XVI emphasizes Jesus unmediated contact with the Father, and this will emerge throughout his Jesus of Nazareth. Our concern today is his treatment of the baptism of Jesus (chp 1).
The choice to be baptized is understood as “an expression of an unrestricted Yes to God’s will, as an obedient acceptance of his yoke” (17). Taking on a recapitulation theory for Jesus’ mission, he says this: “Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind’s guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan” (18). Thus, the Baptism — and many have said this, but very few historical Jesus scholars say it today — “is an anticipation of the Cross.”
For our part: “To accept the invitation to be baptized now means to go to the place of Jesus’ Baptism. It is to go where he identifies himself with us and to receive there our identification with him” (18).
He explores biblical texts and has a nice little survey of the Lamb of God theme.