What words do you long to hear the most? What would be a good word for your soul to carry you through 2019?
There are probably as many answers to that question as people present this morning. But my guess is the words that most of us — perhaps all of us — long to hear have something to do with relationship.
When push comes to shove — as it too often does in this world where many are jostling for power and position — we all need to know that we are loved. This is more than a nice, touchy-feely sentiment: hard science confirms the importance of love for the healthy development of a baby’s brain. Child or adult, we all flourish when we are recognised, valued and loved just as we are, not for what we do, produce or consume.
Jesus, in today’s Gospel, hears that he is loved. And he hears it from the most powerful source: the voice of God the Father telling him, “You are my son, the Beloved”.
- “You are my Beloved” this good word is for all of us and is one that we all need to hear.
It’s worth thinking about how the revelation of Jesus’ Sonship and Belovedness takes place in the context of baptism and prayer:
“when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying […] a voice came from heaven”
“When all the people were baptised”. Though this might seem like a throwaway line, it makes an important point.
First, this reminds us that, even though we might tend to think of baptism as the act of an individual, it is also very much a corporate event. If that was the case for the baptism John offered, how much more so is it the case for our baptism into Christ. More than simply a corporate event, it is an act of incorporation because it marks our becoming part of the Body of Christ — the Corpus Christi. This is why our baptismal liturgy includes words for the entire congregation, reminding us of the faith and mission of the church as a whole.
Secondly, baptism isn’t just an act of incorporation; it is also an act of identification. If we accept that Jesus was without sin, that leaves us with a big conundrum as to why he wanted to be baptised. He didn’t need to repent and he certainly wasn’t being baptised into his own Body. A standard answer is that he submitted to baptism out of solidarity with sinful humanity. I don’t know about you, but that argument leaves me thinking, “Yes, but surely there’s something more going on.”
One commentator I read (Carol Lakey Hess) says that, in submitting to baptism, Jesus shows that he understands the full implications of the incarnation — that is, he acknowledges that he is fully part of humanity’s broken set-up; he’s born into and from it.
We can all attest to that brokenness. The way that our systems, our social structures, steer and shape our options means that we are left with no unambiguous or sin-free choices. It limits our choice of what kind of work we can do, what clothes of food we can buy and even we can vote for. In other words, as Bruce Cockburn puts it in his song “Broken Wheel”, you “can’t be an innocent bystander in a world of pain and fire and steel”. In submitting to baptism, therefore, Jesus is saying, “I’m taking part in this mess. My choices are walled in by it too.”
If that’s the way we should understand Jesus’ baptism, then it means that the voice from heaven speaks the words, “You are Beloved” to someone who is as much a part of the messed-up system as we are — one who not only identified with broken humanity but identified as broken humanity. But one who also overthrew that system.
No matter how broken we are, no matter how sinful we are, we are Beloved of God. And this applies not solely to those of us who are in the club of the baptised but to the whole world. In baptism, we identify ourselves publicly as sinners in need of redemption, so we identify with the whole of humanity. We also identify with Christ in his death and resurrection and so enter the truth of our Belovedness. But we were Beloved before our baptism, even before we believed, even before we were born. As the First Letter of John says, and as we are reminded every Sunday, “We love because God loved us first.”
This should make all the difference in the world. It should put the words of our reading from Isaiah, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you”, at the core of our being and it should drive our actions. But we often find it hard to lay hold of this truth.
I think it is significant that Luke mentions that it was “when Jesus … was praying” that the revelation came because this points to one of the main ways that we can grow into the truth of our Belovedness.
A few years ago, I was going through a particularly painful time and could not see the way forward. I could do nothing but sit with the pain, holding it before God. That was the only way I was able to pray. One day, after I don’t know how many weeks of this, it suddenly dawned on me that there was nothing I could do to make God love me more and, more to the point, nothing I could do to make God love me less. The pain didn’t vanish but I felt a profound release and saw a way through. I had suddenly emerged into the truth of my Belovedness.
I still wrestle with my broken humanity. I still mess up. But I can now recentre myself in my identity as Beloved.
- This is the heart of prayer: not asking God to do things but entering deeply into the relationship that God calls us into, understanding who we are in the eyes of God.
- Prayer is not about us changing God’s mind but us being changed into people with the mind of Christ.
When we know ourselves to be Beloved of God, we are freed to see others as Beloved too — not just those we find it easy to love, but those we struggle to like, even those who injure us. All these people also need to know that they are Beloved.
This is the task of the church: to live in our identity as Beloved so that others can find that identity too. The person who has survived years of cruelty and abuse — they need to know that they are Beloved. The young person wrestling with their body image or gender identity — they need to know that they are Beloved. The businessman whose life is ruled by the firm’s performance targets — they need to know that they are Beloved.
“You are my Beloved.” Let those words ring out in the depths of your being as we remember now what Christ has done for us and as we go from here to love and serve the Lord.