You are My Beloved 1-8-23
You are My Beloved
Is 42:1-9; Mt 3:13-17
Is 42:1-9
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
Mt 3:13-17
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Prayer - Gracious and loving God, just as you proclaimed your belovedness of Jesus the Christ in baptism, so you proclaim the very same thing to us. As your beloved children, we are called to live out of that belovedness rather than some sense of not good enough. Remind us, again, gracious God, that your love for us is as deep as the oceans and as wide as the skies – that nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from being your beloved children – amen.
Jesus showed up at the Jordan to be baptized by John. John wasn’t sure about whether he was even good enough to do the baptizing of the One who came to the river that day. Interestingly, Jesus showed up on a day when the place was teeming with sinners – faulty, sorry, guilty human beings – who hoped against hope that John could clean them up and turn their lives around. If you have ever read the arrest report in the local newspaper, then you know the kinds of things most of them were guilty of – drunk driving, bad checks, petty larceny, assault. Some were notorious sinners, and some were there for crimes of the heart known only to themselves, but known of them had illusions of their own innocence. They had come to be cleansed. They knew they were not clean.
Jesus showed up and got in line with them. No one knew anything about him yet. Jesus simply took his place in line and waited his turn, but later, after the heavens were torn apart and the voice from heaven declared him as Beloved, there was a lot of controversy. What was he doing in that crowd of sinners, looking and acting like one of them? What did he have to be sorry about, and why was God’s Beloved submitting himself to a scruffy character like John? And what does this idea of Beloved mean for me, for you, for all of us, when we are baptized too?
The Christian church has never been real comfortable with the baptism of Jesus. Compare the accounts in each of the four gospels and you can’t miss the dis-ease of the authors. Scholars would suggest that all of this embarrassment is our surest proof that Jesus really was baptized and proclaimed as the Beloved.
If Jesus had listened to his PR people, he would never have shown up like that, perhaps he would have been a friend to sinners, a kind and loving helper, but never mistaken as one of them. His handlers would never, ever have allowed him to be baptized. And maybe that is why we get that voice from heaven as a reminder that not only Jesus, but all of us who enter the cleansing waters of baptism hear those very same words – you are my beloved, you are my beloved.
We spend a lot of time in church talking about God’s love of sinners, but we sure do go to a lot of trouble not to be mistaken as one of them. Guilt by association and all that. Only Jesus – the one who heard God’s proclamation of Belovedness when coming out of those baptismal waters – never seemed to worry about hanging out with ‘those people.’ In Jesus, God’s being with us included God’s being in those baptismal waters with us, in the flesh with us, naming us and proclaiming us as Beloved just as God named and proclaimed Jesus as Beloved.
Rachel Held Evans’ opening chapters to her book, Searching for Sunday, are a moving reflection on remembering our baptism, “Jesus did not begin to be loved at the moment of his baptism,” she writes, “nor did he cease to be loved when his baptism became a memory. Baptism simply named the reality of his existing and unending belovedness.” So it’s fair to say that we’re not necessarily remembering the act of being baptized so much as the naming that occurred; not our given name but the deeper identity that was acknowledged – we are Beloved as well.
I have to admit that for many of us it is difficult to believe or accept that we are God’s Beloved as a core truth of our lives. It seems that we have a way of running around in large and small circles, always looking for someone or something to convince us of our Belovedness. It is as if we continue to refuse to acknowledge the voice that speaks from the baptismal waters and says to us – you are my Beloved. That voice has always been there but it seems that we are more eager to listen to other, louder voices that say, ‘prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular or powerful.’ Meanwhile, the soft, gentle voice that speak in the silence and solitude of my heart all too often remains unheard, or at least, unconvincing.
Why is it that we are searching for love in all of the wrong places, as the old country song goes? Why do we continue to hope to find our worthiness and inner well-being elsewhere? We seem to be waiting for the mysterious moment of feeling included and all the while we run around helter-skelter, anxious and restless, never fully satisfied. This compulsiveness keeps us going around and around, busy and never really getting anywhere. This is the path to spiritual burnout and death of the soul.
You and I don’t have to kill ourselves. We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved us. That’s the truth of our lives – we are the Beloved. Listen to these words from scripture – “I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved your name in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me . . . wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.” (Life of the Beloved, pp 25-32)
Which is why it’s so important to be reminded of the importance of our primary identity as a Beloved child of God and how this name continues to be our most important truth. It’s not that all these other names are worthless; some of them may be quite important to us. Rather, it’s that while all these other names, affiliations and identifications may describe us, they dare not define us, as only the name we receive as Beloved grants us the life we enjoy.
As Presbyterians, we believe that Baptism is a sign and seal of inclusion in God’s grace – that sounds a lot like – chosen as a beloved son or daughter of God’s grace. The Book of Order tells us that ‘Baptism is God’s gift of grace and God’s summons to respond to that grace’ – which means that in our baptism we are called to live out of that Belovedness. Being chosen, proclaimed as God’s beloved ones is not about exclusion of others; rather, it is about accepting others in their uniqueness as Beloved just as much as God accepts us in our uniqueness. That is a pretty radical proclamation from a pretty radical God who loves us so much that we are claimed as Beloved even before we enter the world and that can speak to the deep places of our hearts.
In Jesus’ baptism and proclamation, God claims us as his Beloved and in our Belovedness we are accepted as precious and beautiful and worthy, even when the rest of the world may say, not so much. Being one of God’s Beloved Ones is sufficient, is worth-making and summons us to offer praise and thanksgiving each every day. May we celebrate not only our Belovedness but the Belovedness of every one we encounter – our friends, our family, our colleagues, even our enemies and those who believe or think differently than we do. God’s proclamation that ‘You are My Beloved’ is for all people despite what we may want or think – that is why God is God and we aren’t – thanks be to God – amen.