“Beloved”

The world is full of loud voices of judgment. Preachers like John the Baptist still exist today.  All the prophets of fear, all the purveyors of guilt and shame were not confined to the wilderness of Judea 2000 years ago.  You know them. They claim to have the whole truth and know the way of all righteousness, and they go about trying to whip the world into shape like self-appointed deputy sheriffs of God Almighty.  Some of them serve churches and preach every Sunday.  Some of them have their own TV shows.  Some of them do actually stand on street-corners with signs that say “Repent!”  And, unfortunately, some of them have websites and weapons, like the disturbed young man who shot all those poor people in Tucson yesterday.

I’m sure that some of them – quieter and less violent ones, I hope – populate your world.  Perhaps they live in your home, maybe they work in your office or teach at your school.  They may even serve on a committee with you here at church.  They may be your friends.  But you know who they are because they either make you feel inadequate – that you should change and do better, like those who came to John to repent and be baptized – or they make you furious.  You want to cut off their heads, do anything to shut them up – the way King Herod finally had to do for John the Baptist.  Serve up his head on a platter. 

So first of all, if I’ve ever made you feel that way – and if you’ve known me long enough, I probably have – I sincerely apologize.  God doesn’t generally call people to leadership who have no confidence in their own opinion, or a loud voice with which to express it.  I know, unfortunately, that I am far from perfect – and so, like Paul, I am very grateful that God can often work through me in spite of who I am and not because of who I am.  And I’m sure that John the Baptist must have known that about himself too.

Did you hear John’s preaching?  He was not a happy man.  “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? … Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire!”  Let’s pray he was not married!  Who could live with that?  His baptism is so negative – so sin and shame-based – it’s no wonder John is taken aback when Jesus himself insists on submitting himself to it.  Jesus stops John in his tracks when he offers himself for baptism.  John, who can find a sin in anyone, comes up short when he faces Jesus.  His younger cousin, after all, could walk on water – he didn’t need to get submerged under it like everyone else.  My point is, John knows full well he is not the Messiah, God’s anointed savior of the world – but John clearly believes Jesus is.  And so John tries to prevent the baptism.

But Jesus insists, and John baptizes Jesus – and the reasons why are not entirely clear.  Jesus says, “for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness,” but I’m sure that didn’t make a lot more sense back then than it does now.  It begs more questions than it answers.  Having the lesser man baptize the greater, to have John the prophet baptize Jesus the Messiah simply because it’s right and proper to God, makes me wonder why.  It’s made many a preacher and Bible scholar wonder why.  But I do have a theory.  Listen up, Bible nerds!

I believe Jesus was trying to get John, and all the people there watching, to see the world as God does – completely reversed from our human perspective.  We expect God, like all the great and powerful, to rule over us like a judge and king – regal, distant, respectable.  But I believe that in Jesus giving himself into human hands to be baptized, in that first act of submission, God allowed John, and all the crowd there gathered, to get a glimpse of God’s preferred Facebook status with the world – friend to all.  It was like a quick sneak preview of the upside-down wonders to come – where the last would be first and the first would be last and the little children would lead them and the victory would be the cross.  Remember how on the last night of his life, Jesus gave himself to the disciples by serving them the bread and cup?  And when Jesus knelt before Peter to wash his feet, Peter could barely stand the role reversal.  Why would God go down on his knee and call us “beloved”?  On some level it seems kind of embarrassing, even inappropriate or irresponsible.  It’s just downright unprofessional for the Ruler of all Heaven and Earth to behave that way, to so freely give himself to mere mortals – all goofy in love with us.

And yet, we teach our kids “Jesus Loves Me” around here for a reason.  I think we really believe those words when we sing them to a baby at a baptism.  Who doesn’t love a baby?  They’re so pure, so innocent.  But do we believe “Jesus Loves Me” when we think about ourselves?  Most of us know way way way too much about ourselves and our shortcomings to think God could still be in love with us.  Of course God loves us – that’s his job, his business.  But God’s got to be too smart and too sophisticated to still be in love with us – like some silly schoolboy.  As adults, I think it’s harder for us to drown out the noisy John the Baptist voices that inhabit our world long enough to hear God still whispering to us, “Beloved.”  And harder still is drowning out our OWN judgmental John the Baptist voices long enough to sing “Jesus Loves You” and bless those who persecute us.  Singing a love song to our enemies is the hardest prayer yet.

But I’ve seen it done, and by my own children.  It was a real life, modern miracle, and here’s how it happened: 

One of our most unnerving family memories came one year when we were down in San Diego for the annual comic book convention that my husband John always attends professionally.  The kids and I were tagging along when we were taken completely off-guard while crossing the street at a busy downtown intersection.  We had to wait for a light to change right next to a street-corner preacher who must have gone to seminary with John the Baptist.  Her hair and eyes were a little wild, and she carried one of those signs that most of us only see in cartoons – that say “Repent!”  She was literally shrieking in my ear that I needed to confess Jesus Christ and be saved.  She was following us into the intersection, and at that point, John began leading our little family into the crosswalk because – Thank the Lord! – the light had changed and we could get out of there.  My two little preschool children were wide-eyed, and so I said something like, “Maybe we should sing a song and cheer her up!”  Usually I don’t go all “Maria Von Trapp” like that, but really I was trying to think of something to drown her out. 

So I started to sing “Jesus Loves Me,” because it was something the kids knew – but we were singing it loudly enough that it inspired the kids to switch over to one of their favorite church camp songs, “I’ve Got the Joy Joy Joy Joy Down in My Heart.”  You know it?  “I’ve Got the Joy Joy Joy Joy Down in My Heart!”  And I’m here to tell you, that moment still burns brightly in my memory, the picture of both their little faces turned around and facing her, still clinging to our hands and shouting “And if the Devil doesn’t like it she can sit on a TACK!”  Yeah!  It was a great and triumphant moment in cosmic spiritual warfare.  People around us laughed.  The spiritual climate changed.

I think this kind of grace-filled moment came for John when Jesus gave himself so meekly into his hands to be baptized.  With that one simple act, Jesus showed he was not the powerful, vengeful Messiah John had just been predicting.  What a punch line!  An avenging messiah with flaming sword had not just arrived.  A voice from heaven did not thunder out, “Repent or die!”  God's voice can thunder in the wilderness, as the Psalmist says.  But not this day.  No.  Instead John saw the Spirit of God descending and alighting on Jesus like a dove and calling him “my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  “Beloved.”  That is a word whispered at bedtime by husbands and wives and by mothers and fathers to babies.  I’m sure John was changed by that radical change in God’s tone.  God was still speaking, but God sounded... different.

If the crowd heard it too, or saw that revelation reflected in the faces of Jesus and John, they must have been changed too. I expect the whole world was made new that day as the clouds parted and the peace of the Lord fluttered down upon them.  It’s as if the skies cleared and the dark storm clouds of God’s promised wrath just dissolved.  And all that was left was a glistening wet and smiling Jesus Christ proclaiming a new day, a new covenant of love and not law – like a cosmic weatherman calling, once and for all, for true climate change.  From John’s climate of judgment and hellfire comes Jesus and a refreshing a climate of grace. 

And so, for Jesus, his own baptism was his first parable – a glorious reflecting mirror that took the shining rays of God’s blessing and shone them not just on God’s beloved son, the Messiah, but upon all who had gone down to the riverside that day and upon all of God’s beloved children before and since.  Even upon us. 

That’s what it’s like when God’s grace breaks into the world and saves us.  It drowns out the voices of demons – whether internal or external – who would condemn us or call us names, or actually cause physical violence.  Into all the awfulness of this broken down, messed up world and our battered human condition – when Jesus enters the world, when he comes down to the muddy riverside where we may be driven to our knees in despair, the heavens do open themselves up and the Holy Spirit flutters on down upon us like a dove.  With Jesus, I pray our ears may be opened to hear those words again, for us, “You are my beloved child, and in you I am well-pleased.” 

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.

 

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Psalm 29

¹Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

²Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name; worship the Lord in holy splendor.

³The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters.

⁴The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

⁵The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

⁶He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.

⁷The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.

⁸The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

⁹The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare;
and in his temple all say, “Glory!”

¹⁰The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

¹¹May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!

 

Matthew 3.1-17

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ²“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” ³This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” ⁴Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, ⁶and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁷But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance. ⁹Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ¹⁰Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ¹¹“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹²His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

¹³Then 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.”