Baptism of Our Lord

Luke 3:1-17;21-22

So today is Baptism of our Lord, first Sunday after Epiphany which sets us up for this year’s unusually long Season after Epiphany where we learn more about who this Jesus is and we get to think about what it means to be disciples and children of God. And so we start this season each year by commemorating the Baptism of Our Lord.  It is one of the 4 special days each year where the church holds Baptisms whenever possible and when we don’t, we take time as a congregation to remember our own baptisms and to renew our baptismal vows.

And this year we have especially Beautiful lessons.  I mean year C from Luke has all the best lessons anyway, but this week they are particularly great. Because today is a day about promises.  And about God telling us how much he loves us.  It begins with Isaiah, with the reading we heard today that is one of the most beautiful in the Bible.  It is a love letter from God to the people of Israel promising them hope, safety and his enduring love.  Saying “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” And “you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you,”

I want you to take that home with you today.  To carry that with you.  Right there, it is all there, God promises of love and care for you and everyone you love and everyone who calls on his name and who he formed for his glory, right there in print. Indelible and forever.

And then we heard about the coming of the holy spirit upon the gentiles in the book of Acts and we discover, once and for all that these covenant promises that we heard in Isaiah, are for everyone, not just for the people of Israel but for you and me and for everyone who believes in the Lord.  We see the message of Jesus throw open wide the gates of salvation.

And then we heard the story of Jesus’s baptism.  And it is easy to get wrapped up in John’s words at the beginning because he’s loud and eye catching and all, but that’s not the important part.  Because we are learning to watch for God and what God is doing, and what God is saying, and that stuff comes way at the end.

Because at the end something extraordinary happens.  The Holy Spirit comes down like a dove and God says out loud for all to hear “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” But here is the thing.  It is not extraordinary at all.  It is not special.  It is not something that happens only to Jesus.  It is just a repeat of the same promises from Isaiah.  And it is the same fundamental process that happens to each of us at our own Baptism.  It is the same thing, with the same promises that are spoken to each and every one of us.

Perhaps the thing that makes Jesus’s baptism remarkable is not that God makes these promises to Jesus but that Jesus actually believes them.  Jesus, because of who he is, who he was born to be, trusts these promises to be true, fully and completely in a way that most of us ordinary humans struggle mightily with throughout our lives.  But just because we sometimes or often struggle to believe that God would say this to us, doesn’t make it any less true.

And what he says is remarkable.  “You are my child, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” But we are going to pause for a minute because me and the translators are in a fight again, because this verb eudekeo which the NRSV says means “in you I am well pleased” is active not passive, CEB says “in you I find happiness” which is better but best translation I found is “I delight in you.”

And those are very different things.  Because I have sons, they are 8 & 10.  And sometimes I am pleased with them.  When they do their chores without me yelling, when they get good grades, when they sit still in church, I am well pleased with them.  And when we actually do the things that we are about to promise to do in our baptismal covenant, it is a good bet that God is well pleased with us.  And that is good.  It is good to please God.

But that is not what this is.  Because sometimes I delight in my children.  My boys, since they were tiny, I love it when they run, that sound thump, thump, thump of little feet as they run through the house.   Still just a couple of days ago, Ben goes running down the sidewalk and I turned to my husband and said “I love it when they run”.  I love it when they laugh, like that good belly laugh.  Or when I catch them playing or singing together.  Those are the times I delight in my children.

Not because they have done anything specifically right or good or because they accomplished anything.  But because I get the honor of witnessing them being exactly who they were created to be in all their wondrousness.

That’s what God is saying here.  I delight in you.  God delights in you.  You make God happy.  Just by existing.  That’s the promise that we celebrate today.

What would it mean to really, deeply believe that God says to each of us  “You are my child.  My beloved.  I delight in you.”  What would it mean to know that you make God happy?  Not that you have somehow done something that pleases him, that you have somehow earned his favor through your actions or faithfulness or piety, but that your very existence, the fact that you are who you are, where you are, how you are, your mere presence on this planet brings God joy.  Makes God laugh out loud happy.  I think if we could all start really believing that, everything else would end up okay.

So lets start today.  Take a minute.  Close your eyes.  Listen.  Say it to yourself.  God is saying to you.  Really you as you are right now.  “You are my child. I love you.  You make me happy.”

That’s it.  That we have to know today, 10 words.  “You are my child.  My beloved.  I delight in you."  And I think that may be all we ever really need.  Amen.