January 11, 2015
First Sunday After Epiphany
Rev. Amy Welin:
“You are my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
None of us can hide the truth about ourselves forever.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there were twin brothers in my high school class. Although they were identical, it was not too difficult to distinguish between Michael and Patrick, if you paid attention to details (such as on which side they parted their hair). But occasionally, especially around the first of April, they decided to have a little fun and trade places for the day. The other students found this very amusing. But they could not disguise their identities completely. In third period algebra, Sister Ignatius looked up and said wryly, Your brother is much better at solving algebra problems, Mr. Reilly, perhaps you should inform him that his grade has slipped today – and that is no April Fool’s joke.
None of us can hide the truth about ourselves forever.
Jesus goes wading into the River Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John, and there is no more mystery about his true identity. After thirty years of relative obscurity in Nazareth, the son of Mary knows fully and without doubt that he is The Son of God, the Beloved. We might wonder whether his mother had told him anything about the visit from the wise men from the East, and if he had thought about the significance of their gifts. But the Holy Spirit, that powerful, creative breath of God that hovered over the waters of creation, is anything but subtle. She tears open the heavens and descends on him like a dove. The voice of the Lord is mighty upon those waters indeed.
For many years after the Resurrection, the baptism of Jesus embarrassed the church. He couldn’t have been baptized for the forgiveness of sin, could he? Wasn’t the Son of God sinless? Then why was Jesus baptized?
The significance of the baptism story this morning is that the revelation of his identity is made to Jesus. In none of the three gospels in which this story is repeated does the voice speak to the people gathered at the river. The voice is for Jesus. The voice changes his life. After a brief time spent in prayer and retreat, Jesus begins his amazing and powerful ministry in Galilee.
You are my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
Close your eyes for a second and listen to that again.
You are my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
Is it easy or difficult to imagine that those words are also spoken to us, for our sake?
Have we ever considered our baptism not only as an inoculation against sin, but also as a marker of our identity? Are we marked as Christ’s own forever? Are we wicked? Or are we beloved?
Regardless of all the faith we try to have, all the good work we have tried to do, all the prayers we have murmured throughout our lives, many of us have great difficulty believing that those would be the first words out of God’s mouth for us! I was raised with the threatening God of the wagging finger, the One who is never quite pleased with what I have done. I laughingly attribute this to my well-developed sense of Irish Original Guilt. And still it is true. How many days do we all feel like Patrick pretending he is Michael, acutely aware of how badly we have missed the mark, as God watches over us, less than pleased?
If the only awareness we cultivate in our spiritual life is an awareness of our failures and distance from God, we have learned only half the truth – and we are in real danger of forgetting the rest of the truth: how much we mean to God. And then we embrace only that unfortunate and self-fulfilling prophecy of original sinfulness, alienation and dismal failure.
We need to remember the full truth about our relationship with God. We make mistakes, we do foolish and spiteful things, AND God loves us deeply and passionately. We all need to remember that as we come up out of the waters of our baptism, the Holy Spirit has clothed us in the Body of Christ. And when God looks at us, God sees Christ: that is what Jesus has done for us through his cross and resurrection. This is a permanent change in our identity: we are part Christ for ever after. The voice of the Lord – the Holy Spirit – hovering upon those waters of baptism changes everything, including our broken relationship with God.
What would it do in our lives if we knew – really knew, all the way down in our bones – that we are beloved by God? Beloved – cherished – as we are – with our weaknesses, faults, and any of the good bits we would like to boast about. Personally, I think it would be a foundationally healing and transformational awareness, even better than being born into a loving family, even better than winning awards, even better than hitting the lottery.
It would mean that we would understand that the God knows all about us – even those warty bits of information we keep from the rest of the world – God is still in love with us – still pleased with us. We are a part of God’s creation – and we are good.
Just as children from happy families do better in life – because their parents adore them and know that they can do good things – we children of God can have happier lives when we recognize that God adores us just as we are – with all our weaknesses and quirks – and God knows that we can do wonderful things.
If you take home only one thought from church this morning, let it be this:
The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, saying to you:
You are my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.