Beloved
Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17
January 12, 2020
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Our theme for this season is “Who Are You?” We are keeping that question in mind as we read the scripture passages for the next few weeks. Much of what we will read in Matthew’s gospel will be from the Sermon on the Mount, a great collection of Jesus’ teachings to his followers. But today, we have Jesus’ baptism. Baptism is a central mark of Christian identity. Almost every group of Christians practices baptism in some way. And those of us who identify as Baptists proclaim the significance we place on baptism every time we name ourselves. It is unfortunate that Christians have divided into camps, sometime highly combative camps, about the correct mode or theology of baptism. The ecumenical movement of the last fifty-plus years has helped and we are less combative about those questions now, I think. I hope so. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could find more of our identity in being Christian, in following Jesus, than in our denominational labels? So, as much as I might love a good church fight about who is right on the questions of how and when and why to perform baptisms, that is not where this sermon is headed.
Ruth read two passages to give us context. I just want to focus on one verse in each passage. First, from Isaiah 42 verse1, where God says, “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.”
Much scholarly ink has been used debating Isaiah’s understanding of the identity of this servant – was it the nation of Israel or a portion of it? Was it a particular leader who would emerge after the Exile? Whatever Isaiah might have thought, as Christians looked back, they realized how well these words described Jesus. The one who in whom God delighted and in whom God’s Spirit dwelt. Because of that Spirit, Jesus was able to execute justice.
The second verse I’m focused on is Matthew 3:17. It reads, “And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Hear those words – God’s Delight, Beloved, Well-pleased. Those are the most important words for this day. If you don’t hear anything else, hear them. Hold onto them. Claim them.
A crowd of people has gathered at the river. It’s kind of a muddy river and people are milling around on the riverbank and wading out in it to be baptized. And there, in the middle of the crowd, is Jesus of Nazareth. He does not do anything to distinguish himself from any other sinner in need of repentance. He risks guilt by association. He’s not back in Jerusalem with the respectable people but out in the wilderness with the wild man John, with the people who have been tainted by their contact with outsiders, with those revolutionaries and outlaws, with those who desperately need something to change in their lives. In other words, in his baptism, he thoroughly identifies with all of humanity, with all people. Barbara Brown Taylor says “It has never been [Jesus’s] style to shout directions to us from a safe place of his own. He has always led from within our midst, joining us in the water, in the mud, in the skin, to show us how it is done.”[1]
And God is well-pleased. “This is my Beloved.”
In her book, Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans writes, “Jesus did not begin to be loved at the moment of his baptism, nor did he cease to be loved when his baptism became a memory. Baptism simply named the reality of his existing and unending belovedness.”[2]
Unending belovedness is so very hard for us to grasp. See, what I’m saying is that Jesus identifies with us so that we can dare to identity with him, as Beloved ones, as God’s own children.
That day, when as Jesus comes up out of the water, the Holy Spirit shows up, in some kind of tangible form, something that people can observe, and God claims Jesus as God’s own. This is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the inauguration of his calling. This is the point when Jesus knows that he is held by the power of love. And it forms his life. Sharing that love, serving as a vessel of that love, becomes his purpose, his passion, his life’s mission. In his baptism Jesus identified with humanity. Through our baptisms, we identify with him. We begin to know that we are held by the same unending love that held Jesus.
Theologian Henri Nouwen wrote “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can take that love away.”[3] God becomes incarnate to share everything with us. The more deeply we believe that, the more fully we live within God’s unconditional love, the less fearful we will be and the more joy we will know. If that sounds familiar, it might be because I said it on Christmas Eve. I’m saying it again because it is still true and still hard for us to take in.
God’s Delight, Beloved, Well pleased.
We are enough. More than that, we are God’s delight. God wants to do wonderful things for and through us. To bring joy and justice and strong, powerful love.
Dr. Bill Leonard was one of my seminary professors. He taught church history with passion, but more importantly he modelled following Jesus no matter what. He tells this story about his daughter’s baptism, “Our daughter, Stephanie, is a person with special needs, learning and motor skill disabilities. Concepts do not come easily for her. Because of that I supposed that she might never receive baptism since she cannot meet all the conceptual pre-requisites demanded by many Baptists. You see, she does not understand the substitutionary theory of the atonement or the historical critical method of biblical studies the way the rest of us do. But on the third Sunday in December, 1991, on the way home from church, Stephanie, age 16, announced to her mother and me, "I think it’s time for me to be baptized." We talked about it and she was resolved, so we went to see our pastor, and he was everything a pastor should be for such a moment. He did not speak to her of what she had to KNOW, but what she wished to BE. "If you receive baptism, Stephanie," he said, "you are saying that you want to be a follower of Jesus. Do you want that?" She said yes and we prayed together.
And on Christmas Eve, Stephanie entered the baptistery of the Crescent Hill Baptist Church, Louisville, the same baptistery where her father had taken the spill years before. "Profess your faith," the pastor said. "Jesus is Lord," Stephanie replied. And under she went in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in the presence of a congregation that had nurtured her to faith throughout her 16 years.
Dr. Leonard continues, “We are all special needs persons, you and I. In some of us, it is just more public than in others. Not one of us can ever conceptualize enough to make us worthy of God's grace. If pressed, I must admit that I know more about sin and salvation, doctrine and dogma, than my daughter ever will. But I am not certain that such knowledge makes me any closer to grace than she was on that Christmas Eve.”[4]
God’s Delight, Beloved, Well pleased.
Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and nothing can take that love away.
Some of us may remember the movie Weapons of the Spirit. We watched it together one Sunday in Lent a couple of years ago. It told the story of the people of Le Chambon, France who sheltered and protected 3500 Jewish people and 1500 other refugees during the occupation of France in the Holocaust.
Many of those who were saved were children. One of the children who survived was Renée Kann. She was just a young child during the war. Her experience had been so traumatic that she put most of it out of her mind. The story of the courage and resistance of the people of Le Chambon was not well known, but then in 1989, Renée Kann came across an article in the New York Times about the Weapons of the Spirit movie. She said to her husband, “There is a film being made about a town where I think I might have spent some time.” So, they went to see it together.
A woman named Madeline Dreyfus was responsible for getting about 100 of those children to safety. At one point in the movie, Madeline Dreyfus appears. She is asked about a notebook that she kept. It was a place where she kept track of all the children she had hidden and where, which was quite risky. Anyway, Renée said, “she opens this notebook on the screen and I saw my sister’s name and my name and our address and my sister’s date of birth and [the movie] goes on and she turns pages and my name appears again. And I let out a scream. I have never in my life screamed like that.”
It was an incredible turning point for her. She said, “That’s the first time I realized that I had not been part of something shameful but a part of something extraordinarily beautiful and worthy.”[5]
She was precious, worthy of care and love, protection and rescue.
God’s delight, Beloved, well pleased.
Let me invite us now to stay right here, with these words. Allow them to sink deeply into you, believe them, trust them, know their truth and their power. You might want to close your eyes and sit comfortably. Allow your body to rest easily on your chair. Relax
Imagine that you are in an empty room. A little way in front of you is a rocking chair. It is rocking and you can see someone is in it. You walk towards the chair, slowly.
Then you see that the chair holds a grandmother. She is beautiful and wise. The love she carries fills the room. It is powerful, like a physical force surrounding her and you. Feel that love.
The grandmother beckons and you climb onto the grandmother’s lap. You are just the right size for her lap. Her strong arms wrap around you. You are being held, comfortably and securely.
Your breathing slows and deepens. You release tension, anxiety, fear, worry. They all slip away. All that matters right now is being here, on God’s lap.
You allow yourself to be held, to be rocked, you simply breathe in God’s fierce love, knowing that you are precious, worthy of love and care and protection.
Breathing in and out . . . God’s fierce love … you are still, at peace. . . and you listen for what God is saying to you . . .
Did you hear that? God says “you are my delight. You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased.”
Carefully now, you climb down from God’s lap and start moving away from the rocking chair. But you know that you may return again to this place whenever you need to. . .
[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, Mixed Blessings, (Boston: Cowley Publications, 1998), p. 59-60
[2] Rachel Held Evans, Searching For Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church, (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2015) pp. 14-15
[3] Henri Nouwen, You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living (New York: Convergent Books, 2017) p. 169
[4] The Rev. Dr. Bill Leonard, in his sermon The River, https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2002c33/view
[5] https://wagingnonviolence.org/podcast/city-of-refuge-part-9/