Baptism of the Lord Jan 9-10, 2021
And a voice came from the heavens,
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Now I cannot speak to this from
first-hand personal experience from the parent’s point of view. When my pastor back at St. Nicholas Church in
North Pole, Alaska, would often be asked how many children he had, he responded
“none to speak of.” I likewise in terms
of children have “none to speak of.”
Still, I observe parents and their
relationship to their offspring, and it seems pretty clear that the great
majority of parents love their children.
There are a few unfortunate exceptions to this rule, but generally, and
pretty much universally here in this parish, parents love their
children. All of you parents can
identify with God the Father when God says of Jesus, “You are my beloved
Son;” It seems natural and normal for a
parent to love their child, whether daughter or son.
But are you pleased, indeed well
pleased, with your children? This is
a different thing. You love your
children just because they are your children.
But are you well pleased with them?
Those of you who are children, I hope
your parents love you just because you are their children. But are they pleased with you?
That judgement is based on a different
set of criteria. That is about what the
children do. I am sure
that at sometime, most parents are not pleased with their child; when
they back into the garage door, or flunk an exam because they failed to study,
or they get in trouble with the police. But
hopefully, most of the time, for most of you parents, and for you children,
parents are pleased with their kids.
And this is what God says about
Jesus. “with you I am well pleased.” You can
feel the pride and satisfaction that God the Father has in Jesus.
Now what about us? All of us, by our Baptism, have been
conformed to Christ and are truly children of God. You
are God’s child.
And God loves you. God loves you very, very much. Simply because you are a child of God. It does not depend on what you do.
But, and this is where it gets
interesting, is God pleased with you? Is
God well pleased with you?
God loves you no matter what. And God will never stop loving you. But God does call us to a certain way of
life, a life of love, of service, of honesty, of compassion, of truth and
righteousness. That is why God the
Father is well pleased with Jesus, because he embodied and lived that life.
And in the same way, God wants, desires,
to be well pleased with you. God longs
and aches to be proud of you as God’s child.
We have the remarkable ability, every
one of us, to make God proud of us, to be well pleased with us, or to be
disappointed with us. It is entirely up
to us.
And just as it is very painful, and a
deep wound, for a parent to be disappointed, even ashamed, of one of their own
children, so it is a disappointment and a pain for God to not be proud of every
one of us.
As we celebrate this Feast of the
Baptism of the Lord we naturally recall our Baptism that made us beloved
children of God. We also have the great
privilege, and opportunity, to make God proud of us, well pleased with us. And we do that simply by living the life of
Jesus, in honesty, compassion, generosity, and love.
It was a
wonderful and great experience for Jesus to hear those words from the sky, “with
you I am well pleased.” What a joy
and wonder it will be for each of us to hear, at the end of our life here, our
Father in Heaven declare, “With you, I am well pleased.”
God
bless!
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