I have always wondered what kind of relationship Jesus and his cousin John had. John was the first person to ever recognize Jesus when he lept for joy when Mary came to visit his mother Elizabeth. Were they cousins who played games and visited each other? Did John ever come to Nazareth to visit with Jesus and his parents? Did they spend summer vacations with each other? Did they ever get into trouble with their mothers for doing dumb and dangerous things? My answer and my hope is yes, because after all, they were kids. 

Could you imagine if they were the same as kids as they were as adults? No one would want to play games with Jesus because he was so perfect…he hit a home run every time. And no one would trade lunches with John because all he ever had was honey and grasshoppers. Yuck! 

But eventually, they grew up. Jesus, the carpenter, and John, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord. Repent!” John the preacher, who was baptizing people in the Jordan River. And he lets everyone know he is not the Messiah. “I baptize you with water, but the one coming after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 

Then came that fateful day. The story of John’s preaching and Jesus’ baptism is the first story to appear in all four gospels because Jesus’ ministry begins here. Most people ask, why would Jesus even need to be baptized? Even John said, 
“I need to be baptized by you and yet you are coming to me?”

I love this explanation from a sermon by Saint Maximus of Turin entitled,
The mystery of the Lord’s baptism:

The Gospel tells us that the Lord went to the Jordan River to be baptized and that he wished to consecrate himself in the river by signs from heaven. Reason demands that this feast of the Lord’s baptism, should follow soon after the Lord’s birthday, during the same season, even though many years intervened between the two events.

At Christmas he was born a man; today he is reborn sacramentally. Then he was born from the Virgin; today he is born in mystery. When he was born a man, his mother Mary held him close to her heart; when he is born in mystery, God the Father embraces him with his voice when he says: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: listen to him. 

The mother caresses the tender baby on her lap; the Father serves his Son by his loving testimony. The mother holds the child for the Magi to adore; the Father reveals that his Son is to be worshiped by all the nations. That is why the Lord Jesus went to the river for baptism: that is why he wanted his holy body to be washed with Jordan’s water.

There is another first in this story. This is the first time scripturally that the Trinity is mentioned, Jesus being baptized, the Father’s voice is heard and the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove.

As His baptism was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, our baptism is the beginning of our ministry. No, we’re not all ordained to the ministry as our priests and deacons are, we are called to live a life of ministry, in whatever way the Lord leads us. 

I’ve mentioned before that I lost my firstborn son back in April 24, 1987. He only lived for nine minutes but the one thing I did before he died was to hold him in my arms and baptize him. It wasn’t like he was not going straight back to heaven, but I wanted him to know, that Larry Guadalupe Gallegos is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. So I always remember April 24, 1987 as his birthday, the day he died and his baptism day. Here’s my Baptismal Certificate. My birthday is March 21, 1958 and I was baptized at San Jose Church on South Broadway on April 6, 1958 which is my baptism day. I usually treat myself to a favorite meal and sometimes even take the day off to celebrate they day my ministry started.
Baptism is a gift from God to His children. Now whether the choice is made by parents of a child or by a person old enough to make the choice to be baptized on their own, it is a choice that is available to all the children of God and with it, we accept that God is our Father. God has no grandchildren…only children, so we must be cleansed in the water the way our brother Jesus chose to do.   

So I ask all of you, if you don’t know it already, to find out and mark the day of your baptism on your calendar, and celebrate it because each of us is beloved, God is well pleased with us too!

Beloved:
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch

We were sitting at a table in Starbucks.  My friend had just come from his wife’s—our good friend’s—hospital bedside.  For two weeks, he had been at her side watching her slip away, catching sleep when he could.  But that day was different.  He had a calmness about him I hadn’t seen before.  We talked about the horror he’d been through and how he was coping with it all.  In retrospect, I suspect he knew that she was dying.  But he didn’t mention that.  What he talked about was how he was getting through those horrendous days.  That’s where his story joins the story we just heard.  

You see, my friend had this deep sense of peace about him, a calm, a fixed point in the storm that was his life in that moment.  My friend kept coming back to how he felt grounded in and held by God.  I think that’s what happens when you know deep in your bones you’re beloved of God.   Everything else seems to fall away.  It’s freeing.  

Look what happens to Jesus when the heavens are ripped apart and God whispers to him, “You are my son.  My beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”  He’s driven out to the wilderness, tempted by Satan, ministered to by angels.  He’s ridiculed by family and rejected by neighbors.  Powerful insiders taunt him and plot against him.  At the end, even his own disciples flee from him.  

And yet Jesus keeps his focus on the work before him—healing the sick, feeding the hungry, giving sight to the blind and proclaiming the good news that God’s reign is at hand.  Jesus knows he’s beloved of God and that makes all the difference in the world.  He doesn’t have to worry about earning that love or somehow disappointing the One who loves him or falling short in one way or another.  He’s loved before he even begins his work.  He is; therefore, he is beloved.

That’s true for Jesus and that’s true for me and you.  We are; therefore, we are beloved.
I wonder what it would be like if we lived from that place of belovedness.  Would we, like my friend, develop a deep peace?  Would we, like Jesus, focus on our mission and our ministry?  

I wonder if knowing that we are beloved of God just as we are would make it easier for us to delight in ourselves.  Do you think we could get a kick out of just being us?

And I wonder how seeing one another as beloved of God would change how we treat one another.  Would we be more tender?  More patient?  More attentive?  

How would our expectations of and interactions with one another change if we kept in mind that God is well pleased with us before we do or say a single thing?  Would we be more accepting of one another?  Would we find it easier to delight in each other?  Would we be more likely to show compassion?

One of my seminary friends tells the story of a classmate—a person she found particularly annoying.  When she found out she would be rooming with this woman for two weeks, she wondered how she would ever survive.   Finally, she turned to a particularly sweet priest who had served a difficult parish for a long time.  She asked him how he put up with the difficult ones.  He told her, “Whenever I look out at my congregation, I see the beloved children of God.”  The way my friend tells it, that shift in perspective made all the difference in the world.

Beloved of God.  That’s true of me, that’s true of you and that’s true of all God’s children.  How do we live with this knowledge?

In a few moments, we will reaffirm our baptismal vows.  They are our response to the love God showers on us.  As part of this reaffirmation, I invite you to stop by the baptismal font after receiving communion.  Pick up one of the pebbles.  Hold it your hand.  Let it remind you of God’s love for you.  Let it remind you that you are beloved of God.  How will you live with this knowledge?