The Rev. Dr. Hilary B. Smith
The Beloved
You might be thinking: “Wait
a minute!” I thought that we were done with John the Baptist for awhile. We had
a lot of him during Advent. Well here he is again as we begin the season of
Epiphany. While John is an important part of the story, he is not the focus of
our attention today. We are focused on that moment with God spoke with clarity
about Jesus’ identity and mission. "You are my Son,
the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
This season of the church
year is about revelation – God being revealed to us – it is about those moments
when we realize that God came for us, to save us, and is with us now. We look back at those moments when people
realized that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. The blessing we will have at
the end of this service names several of those Epiphany moments – the star that
led the wise Men, the dove descending at Jesus baptism, and the water becoming
wine at the wedding in Cana. Those were moments when faith was formed and God’s
plan of salvation through Christ started to take shape.
We look around now and ponder
the ways God is revealed to us in the context of our lives. We all need those
moments of spiritual clarity. Those moments are gifts in a world filled with
much that can cloud our vision or distract us from God. Much can also distract
us from who we are for God – that we are the beloved of God.
The heavens were torn apart,
the dove descends and the voice of God is clear, “You are my Son, the Beloved
with you I am well pleased.” So very clear – Jesus knew – the voice of God left
no doubt about his call. Jesus is the only one who hears the words – the words
are for him, giving him clarity about his unique role.
It is immediately after this
moment of clarity that Jesus goes into the wilderness and is tested and
tormented by the devil. Scholars note that the words attributed to God at
Jesus’ Baptism, with you I am “well pleased” are used not only with Jesus but
with others to show who is part of God’s plan of salvation. Knowing that his
Father in heaven was well pleased with him, Jesus was strengthened to face those
moments of darkness in the wilderness.
As we learn from the life of
Jesus, being the beloved does not make things easy—far from it, knowing that
one is called to deep commitment and to act in the world on behalf of God often
comes with sacrifice. But it is a sacrifice we are more than willing to make
for the One who gives us life, in fact, never ending life, and gives us love
that knows no limits. We too are called beloved of God.
Henri Nouwen’s book The
Life of the Beloved, describes some of the challenges of living a spiritual
life in the secular world – but also the high calling that we have as children
of God. He gives us four words that characterize our lives as the beloved: taken,
blessed, broken, and given (Henri Nouwen, The
Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World, New York:
Crossroad Publishing, 1993). Just as the communion bread is taken, blessed, broken
and give, so too are we. We have been claimed by God, we are blessed and we are
broken, and all that we are – the blessedness and the brokenness -- all that
God calls us to be is not just for us, but we are given to others – we are ones
given to comfort and strengthen others – to live as ones who know the grace of
God and thereby communicate that grace to others.
Through baptism, we receive
the Holy Spirit and become part of God’s plan of salvation for the world in a
distinctive way. Every person in the world is beloved of God, and for we who
are part of the body of Christ, we are called to act on that love in specific
ways.
As stated in the baptismal
covenant: we continue in the apostles’ teaching, in the fellowship and in the
breaking bread; we resist evil; we proclaim the Good News of God in Christ, by
word and example; we seek and serve Christ in all persons loving our neighbors
as ourselves; we strive for justice and peace among all people; and we respect
the dignity of every human being. When you do these things, you are living the
life of the beloved. We do all of these things with God’s help, having been
marked as Christ’s own forever, and sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism.
Paul found some disciples in
Ephesus and asked them: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became
believers?” They replied, “No, we hand not even heard that there is a Holy
Spirit.” This account of Paul baptizing people in Ephesus caused me to remember
a conversation I had with a priest in preparation for my baptism.
Having been baptized as an
adult, I remember being taught about the Holy Spirit in that context. My priest
at the time was assuring me that through my baptism I would receive the Holy
Spirit. He insisted that the people who would in future ask me if I had been
baptized in the Spirit (as an event separate from my baptism), that these
people did not understand baptism and the Spirit the way we Episcopalians do.
You know what I mean—there
are some who believe that you have to have a particular sort of encounter with
the Spirit to be fully Christian and fully saved. My priest was assuring me
that the baptism I was going to get was the full deal – the complete
incorporation in to the Body of Christ. I remember how I was a bit confused
about what he was saying. At the time, I didn’t know there were all these
different ideas about baptism and the Spirit or that there were these people
out there who would question whether I had received the Holy Spiritor not.
The Bible gives us example
after example of God being known and recognized.
As recorded in the Bible, God
acted to connect with people again and again. The Spirit comes upon Jesus at
his baptism – we know that he is the Son of God. Jesus is the new creation –
just as the Spirit moved over the waters in the Genesis account of creation –
so too with Jesus the Spirit and the water are combined to create new life and
to reveal the power and purposes of God in this world.
God continues to reach out to
us; God continues to break into our lives sometimes in subtle ways, which work
on us over the years, and at other times in dramatic ways immediately capturing
our hearts and our minds. God acts to be known through both the regular things
of life and through miraculous moments that no one could have anticipated.
Some things that once seem
miraculous have become so normal for us that we can miss the miracle. Our
baptisms and every baptism that we have witnessed is a time of clarity on God’s
part. God is clear that every person is the beloved. God is clear that everyone
who becomes a member of the Body of Christ as in important and irreplaceable
role.
Sure, many people can do
similar things – but you alone have been created by God to do what you do for
God in a certain way, bringing all of gifts that God has given you to the task.
Always remember: you are the beloved. You are irreplaceable and fully empowered
by the Spirit given you at your baptism to answer God’s call to you. And
together, as the church, we can do so much for God.
We are the miracle; it is a
miracle that we have been brought together to be the church in this time and in
this place. I cannot be convinced that this has happened by accident.
We are here today for a
reason, for many reasons. May we always see clearly that we are God’s beloved,
called together for our joy, for the joy of others, and for the joy of God.
Amen.