You Are My Beloved
“And a voice came from the heavens,
‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”Mark 1:11
Traditionally, the Epiphany, the Baptism of the Lord, and the Wedding Feast of Cana are commonly grouped together in celebration because they are all visible divine manifestations of Jesus. With the Epiphany, it is made known that Jesus is King of all the nations and with the Wedding Feast of Cana we see the divine authority of Jesus in even the ordinary life of the people, revealing that our God is a God who cares about the day to day events of the people, even running out of wine at a wedding! Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, something that at face value seems silly — if baptism is to wipe away sins, why is Jesus, who is sinless, getting baptized?
Jesus desired to be baptized by John not because He was in need of cleansing or that He somehow needed it to partake in the divine life of the Father and the Holy Spirit, but because He desired to be in solidarity with the people and to show what is needed to be done to live as children of God. Rather than being cleansed by the water, Jesus sanctified the water by His act of humility and by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit who descended upon Jesus as He emerged from the water. How symbolic of the Exodus of the Israelites, whom God led from slavery into new life by crossing the waters of the Red Sea. Jesus, having taken on the sins of humanity, passed through the waters of the Jordan, washing away the death our sins merited us and emerging with the light of eternal life, that which by our baptism we now dare hope.
Upon coming from the water, the voice of the Father spoke to the Son, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased,” affirming the the identity of the Son and the source of His authority. Those same words the Father speaks to each one of us today: “You are my beloved son and daughter; with you I am well pleased.” Out of His great love for us, God sent His only begotten Son into the world to be born as we are born and to be baptized so that we might have the hope of eternal life, and to tell us that we are His beloved and that He is pleased with us. God calls us His beloved for He has loved us from all eternity, and He is pleased with us — just us. God is not pleased with us because we excel in our studies or workplaces or because we go to Mass or avoid sin, or even because we bring others into the Church, all of which are great things! But God simply loves us for we who are. God loves us in our weaknesses, in our brokenness, in our vulnerability, and God even loves us through our sinfulness. God loves us and stoops down to meet us in our weak, fragile humanity to raise us up to share in His divinity. How blessed are we? How blessed are we that God loves us so much? And the Father sent His Son into the world to show us just that.
Don’t forget, the Father says to you today, “You are my beloved, and with you I am well pleased.”
