Why did Jesus need to be baptized?

Why do Christians get baptized? There are 4 reasons for Baptism:

 - The erasing of the original sin
- The forgiveness of all personal sins (in case of adults)
- The reception of the Holy Spirit who makes us children of God
- The joining to the mystical body of Christ – the Church

If this is the meaning of Baptism, why did Jesus receive it? In fact he was not conceived with the original sin, he did not have personal sins to be forgiven; of course he did not need to receive the Holy Spirit, nor to become son of God. Jesus never joined the Church, on the contrary, the Church stems from him. So how can we answer this question?

- Our Baptism is not the same Baptism that Jesus received. John the Baptist prepared the people to the coming of the Messiah. He encouraged them to repent and to convert. His Baptism was similar to the Mikweh still practiced by the observant Jews: a ritual bath of purification.

- Jesus was not baptized in order to get rid of sins, rather he took the sin on himself. The Gospel according to Luke says that when all the People was baptized, - Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan River. We can imagine, with a spiritual imagination that in that very moment the water was the dirtiest possible, having received every sort of impurity from the people. Right at that moment the Savior dives into them, and absorbs the whole sin of mankind. Moreover, the Church Fathers teach us that by touching them with his holiness, Jesus purified the waters and made them holy. Something similar to what happened with the leper: Jesus touches him and instead of being contaminated, his purity flows into the sick man and heals him.

It is difficult to find in our world someone who would take responsibility for other’s wrongs. This is something that requires a high level of love. Jesus did it with the sin of the world, as we say at Mass: “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, he took it on his shoulders until the final day, the Holy Friday, when he destroyed it on the cross, once and for all. Holy Friday is the final destination of a journey that Jesus begun on the day of his baptism.