God's Beloved

The early Celtic or Irish Christians used the name “thin places” for places in nature where they felt especially close to God – often places that were especially beautiful, where the grass was especially green or the view especially inspiring. They felt that in these places, the barrier separating them from God was thinner than in most places, almost translucent. Some modern writers use the term “thin places” to refer those transitional moments in our lives – a wedding, the birth of a child, the passing of a loved one – in which our day-to-day lives recede into the background and God’s presence is felt more strongly than usual. Today’s Gospel reading from Luke describes a sort of “thin place”, where we’re told that not only was the separation between humanity and God thinner than normal, but that God tore open the heavens to be part of the moment.

The particular “thin place” in today’s Gospel (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22) is the Jordan River, where John is baptizing the crowds who come to him. The crowds are coming to John to be baptized as a token of repentance, a sign that they are dissatisfied with the quality of their lives, and are not only sorry for what they have done, but want to turn their lives in a new direction. The Jordan River would have been a highly symbolic place for John’s listeners. As Americans and especially as Philadelphians, if we saw someone dressed in a colonial costume standing in front of Independence Hall, telling us that we should do this or that for the good of our country, we might be led to listen with special attention. The Jordan River would have had similar strong associations for John’s listeners. Remember that it was through the River Jordan that the ancient Hebrews crossed into the Promised Land. Naaman’s leprosy was cured when he dipped seven times in the Jordan River. And it was on the banks of the Jordan that Elijah the prophet was swept up in a chariot into heaven, and his mantel fell on his successor, Elisha. So for John’s hearers, the location of the Jordan River marked the barrier between “the wilderness” and “the promised land”, and for John’s hearers would have been associated with freedom, with healing, with prophetic power.

So powerful were these associations, in fact, that Luke tells us the crowds were beginning to speculate that John himself was the Messiah. And so John quickly issued a disclaimer – one is coming who is greater than I, and so great is he that I’m unworthy to undo the thong of his sandal. Yet the crowds came to be baptized – and among the crowds came Jesus. Luke tells us that when everyone had been baptized, Jesus likewise was baptized. As he was in the water, praying – Luke specifies that Jesus was praying – the heavens open, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove. A voice from heaven addressed Jesus: “You are my one dear Son; in you I am well pleased.”

All four Gospels tell of the baptism of Jesus. In Matthew and Mark, the heavens open and Jesus sees the Spirit descending. But Luke’s telling is very specific in saying that everyone sees the Spirit descending in bodily form and all hear God’s voice naming Jesus as his one dear Son in whom God is well pleased.

Why did Jesus come to be baptized? After all, John’s was a baptism of repentance, of turning away from sin, and yet we say that Jesus was without sin. Jesus’ baptism was not for himself, but for us. In being baptized, Jesus stood with the crowds seeking change in their lives, identified with them, indeed, identified with us in a radical way.

And in our baptism, we in turn are identified in a radical way with Jesus. We – or our parents and godparents on our behalf – desire the death of our sinful nature, our cleansing from the power of sin in our lives, and our being raised up out of the waters into the new life Christ brings. We are marked as Christ’s own, and God calls us, as God called Jesus, beloved sons and daughters, in whom God is well pleased. As Jesus was empowered by the Spirit for ministry, so we are empowered by the Spirit to minister in Christ’s name.

And yet we know that in Jesus’ time on earth, God’s voice was not constantly speaking to the crowds from the heavens. Even as God’s beloved, Jesus knew what it was to be hungry, to be exhausted, to feel all the limitations that come with being human. And being baptized as beloved children of God will not insulate us from life’s challenges and pain – but we can gain strength to endure and overcome. We may catch those glimpses of eternity, briefly experience those “thin places” where God seems especially close – but then life goes on as life does, with all the weariness and confusion and pain that life can sometimes bring. It is during the hardest and most painful moments of our lives that we can gain strength from remembering that we are baptized, that we, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, are God’s beloved. I’m reminded of these words that were found scrawled on the walls of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews hid from the Nazis: “I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when I don’t feel it. I believe in God, even when He is silent.” It is during those “dark nights of the soul” that we all experience, in which the light is hidden from our souls and love seems far away and God seems silent, that our baptism can remind us of God’s abiding love. The protestant reformer Martin Luther suffered terribly from depression, and sometimes felt that Satan was stalking his very steps. It was during these awful moments of despair that Luther would remind himself, “But I am baptized. I am baptized.” Note the tense of the verb: not “I was baptized” but “I am baptized”. Not a one-time ritual, but the marking of an ongoing relationship with God. Our whole lives are lived out under the grace of our baptism.

No matter who we are, or where we may find ourselves in our journey through life, we are called to remember that God has claimed us for himself as his beloved sons and daughters – that, in the old words of the Heidelberg Catechism that some of us grew up with, we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ, who through the water of baptism has claimed us for his own. Amen.