Beloved in you God is well pleased

Sermon for The Baptism of Jesus Christ

Mk. 1:4-11 & Genesis 1:1-5

“The Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

Lowered into the current by his dissident cousin, a cousin clothed in the wilderness-wear of the prophets, Jesus rises up from a border river to see the sky rent asunder, the Spirit descending, and a voice calling him “the Beloved.” 

As the sky above tears apart and the water below pushes and pulls at his legs, it is hardly far fetched to think that Jesus, a good jew steeped not only in the prophetic tradition of his people, feels that he is standing, perhaps once gain, in that moment where the God’s breath breathes creation as we know it into existence, where the wind of the Spirit cuts through chaos and the deep, the word of God powered by that very wind, speaks light and dark into existence, and gives us night and day, sunrise and sunset. 

Every gospel story contains this moment, where Jesus, a man of dust and dirt and water enters into the very waters of creation. 

Every Gospel contains this moment when Jesus is submerged into the Jordan watershed, and risen, stands in the very waters that quench the thirst of his people. The theologian Ched Meyers reminds us that this moment is not simply when God’s spirit descends like a dove, but also when Jesus is submerged into the very waters that make life possible. “Being initiated into the sacred, wild spaces of a land groaning under Roman imperialism,” says Meyers, “prepared Jesus for his campaign to liberate and heal his people and place.” 

This moment is just that, a preparation. Mark’s gospel, in the next verses, launches us into Jesus’ campaign of liberation, and we will have ample opportunity to join that campaign.

But today, I want to pause and note that this moment of preparation is rooted in God’s pleasure: “the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

I have been listening to Julian of Norwich as I pack and move, and Dame Julian speaks constantly of our enjoyment of God, and God’s enjoyment of us. She says we are God’s mead or God is our mead, something I appreciate as a fan of craft beer. It amuses me to no end to think that perhaps heaven is sitting down with God over a sloshing mug of perfectly malted beverage.

But I admit that I find her easy talk of God’s enjoyment of us and our enjoyment of God somewhat startling. Not only do I rarely think of God as someone who enjoys, I don’t always imagine myself being enjoyed by God. I assure you, this isn’t a lack of confidence on my part. I think I have a rather enjoyable sense of humor, something my wife affirms. But in truth, there is a part of me that thinks of God as being above something so mundane as enjoyment, as pleasure. Clearly Dame Julian disagrees with me, and I trust her sensibilities on the matter.

And likewise, I trust Mark. In Mark, there is nothing which precedes the pleasure God takes in his Son other than the fact that he showed up. We don’t know what led Jesus to the shores of the Jordan. We don’t know what conversation he had with his cousin John. In Mark, there is no work, no labor, no confession, no repentance. Jesus shows up, is baptized, and is “the Beloved,” with whom God is well pleased.

The intentional juxtaposition of Jesus’ baptism with the story of Genesis in creation that we hear in our scripture readings today reflects an ancient connection between Creation, Salvation, and Baptism. For much of Christian tradition, salvation does not begin with sin and repentance. Salvation begins at the beginning, at creation. God creates, God enters into, God participates in the stuff of creation, whose sole object, sole goal, is to participate in God. God participates in creation which participates in God, which participates in … you get the picture. A creation constantly moving with, in and around our creator. 

This is why yesterday we blessed the waters of the whulge and Salish Sea.  All creation participates in its mutual flourishing, and we are just one part of creation, called to be a blessing to it, to us, each according to our gifts. We are created, knit together of dirt and dust and water and the breath of God to participate with God in the flourishing of creation. 

That is salvation. To become like God in Jesus who seeks the liberation, the healing, the flourishing, of all creation. As in Genesis, when God sees her creation and calls it good, we are seen by God, and God is pleased. God’s pleasure in us is no more preceded by our faith, or belief, or action, than is God’s pleasure in the world God has created. We are a delight to God because we are already God’s.

And so it is rooted in God’s pleasure that we once again renew our baptismal vows. Our baptism buries us into a life shaped by the joy and pleasure of our creator. Our baptism is a call to action, to enter into a life of liberation and healing, but it springs from a love already given, grounded in a creation which already reflects God’s image, in which God is well pleased.

Beloved, know that in you God is indeed well pleased.