There is a holy and life giving tension at the centre of the story of the Baptism of Jesus (especially in the account by Luke) but we are so familiar with the story we don’t necessarily see it! Jesus is baptised along with the masses and only afterward is he declared the Beloved son with whom God is well pleased. That is, Jesus is baptised as one of humanity and as the uniquely human expression of God. (Baptism of Our Lord. Luke 3:15-17, 21-22.)
You may want to read what I have previously written about the Baptism of our Lord.
What we are familiar with and understand well is that this event, the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptiser, marks the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and is the public introduction and commissioning that announces his presence as Son of God and initiates his approximately three years of public teaching and healing and his great work of love on the cross.
What we may not notice so much is that Jesus is baptised just as the others present were. In the Matthew account John protests, and in John’s account the Baptiser proclaims who Jesus is as he approaches for baptism, but the other accounts in Mark and Luke have Jesus queued up with everyone else. Why? We understand that Jesus did not need to washed clean or forgiven as did the others who came to John for baptism. So why was Jesus baptised? I have come to understand this as an act of solidarity and oneness with the human condition in general and as including you and I. In his birth and his life and his death Jesus became completely one of us as well as the one for us.
So in the Baptism scene we see both his fully ordinary humanity and see and hear his unique divine presence. And we need to be able to hold both to be true in Jesus. This is mind bending enough. But we need to be able to hold this truth in relation to ourselves and our neighbours!! Jesus the fully human one who was also beloved Son of God came to show us that we too are beloved and called to be fully human, fully alive sentient beings and divine expressions of the Creator.
Many of us may have moments in prayer, or when listening to sublime music, or falling into a painting or other art form, or when looking at our newest grandchild, when we glimpse the divine nature that is expressed in each part of the creation. But many of us also spend a lot of time and energy berating ourselves and our neighbours as lesser beings. We treat the creation as disposable and as background at best to our appetites and wants. We so often fail to live, move and have our being in a way that reflects our full humanity and the divine that resides in us. Indeed, the lesson of Incarnation, which is what Christmas is all about, is that in creaturely life creation and divinity are one. The divine Creator we thought to be in the sky was now in flesh as we are. And Scripture has always been trying to teach us that we who are flesh are precious expressions of the divine’s beloved.
And just in case we think that this is all too modern or progressive listen to what the ancient words of the prophet tell us: “The one who created you has called you by name and promised to be with you when you pass through the waters and the fire. Because you are precious in my sight and honored and I love you … “What if we hear that being said over the starving children of our government’s enemy or some far away country with an unpronounceable name? What if we listened for those words being spoken over the ruined forests and waterways of creation? What if we heard these words being spoken over the old and forgotten and dying? What if we allowed ourselves to hear that said over us, especially when we are struggling and questioning our value and inclusion in the good life.
Because we are precious we are never outside the embrace of God no matter what is happening. And this gets very hard sometimes because we would prefer that being precious meant we were spared the worst of creaturely life. We would prefer that the earth did not quake, nor overhead storms set the forest on fire, that hearts did not cease or mutant cells multiply. But when such terrifying things happen we are not separate from the one who calls us beloved and precious. Even then, especially in these times, we are companioned by our loving Creator, our source and our destination.
The birth, baptism, life and death of Jesus all show us that in the human form God our Creator has imbued us with what God believes is precious and beloved. We are valued and holy because we are – because we exist, because we are made from and for the loving center of the cosmos. This is why God can always be found in our lives no matter what it happening because there is no outer, no other, no unloved ones.
And this is true of everyone else. And knowing this makes for a wonderous and demanding life. Wonderous in knowing that we are never truly outsiders but always held as precious. Demanding in that we are to live knowing this is also true of those we are less comfortable with, that we don’t approve of or understand. It is not that certain people and creatures and places are not dangerous and best to be respected or avoided. It is that we cannot claim that what we don’t like is unloved by God.
How will that impact on how we go about life this new year? How will that reflect in our prayers for others and our charitable giving? How will it find expression in family relationships and staying connected to our neighbours. How will we go about recognising and protecting the preciousness of the rest of creation – tall trees and little birds, microscopic fungi and creators of rich earth, the cycle of water from cloud to hillside to river to ocean?
And let us remember that we already belong in this great and amazing interconnected web of belovedness. For when we were baptised we were made one with Christ in his death and therefore his life and charged to shine as a light in the world. We are already part of it – we need only notice.
Even so, come Lord Jesus the Christ, come open our ears to your words of belovedness, and open our eyes to the fullness to which we belong.
Photo of Reverend Sue by the Denmark River, Western Australia, celebrating All Souls Day.
This is my work informed by all I have heard, read and experienced. I am indebted to the wisdom of others.
