We’ve been talking in this Season of Epiphany about how God is being revealed in the person of Jesus, pulling back the cover inch by inch. At the time of his parents celebrating his birth at 6 weeks, Jesus is revealed (by Simeon) as someone who brings light to Gentiles and glory to his people, the Jews. God is the light, and Jesus is the one who carries it. This story is the next level of God being revealed. And it’s short:
Luke 3: 21f. Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. (New Revised Standard edition, accessed from biblegateway.com)
You know the expression “he is his father’s son” or “she is her mother’s daughter”; you know the implication is “you” are “just like” the person who raised you – you walk the same, you speak the same, you think the same way and hold the same values. Sometimes when referring to a child’s behaviour which is so reminiscent of their parent we say “apples don’t fall far from the tree”.
You see in this story Luke is inviting us to find The Sacred among us by seeing Jesus in a new way. In Judaism baptism (or immersion, or the action of the mikveh) is the ritual way that one starts life over. John’s baptism in particular, say the scholars, was initiation into the new community of God, starting over Being Born Again into a new way of living.1 We are no longer living in the old way, we are living in the new way. John’s invitation to baptism, to starting over, is to live by offering for free what used to be paid for, not take more than you need, by sharing.2
So by being baptized, Jesus is starting his life over, presumably by committing to the way of life in God that John has been preaching, and now Jesus is at prayer. Is he asking for strength to live up to that commitment? Is he praising God for the opportunity to live this way?
While he is at prayer, he hears a voice: you are my son, my beloved and in you I delight.” I wonder if Luke is saying that while Jesus is at prayer, he realized something: made in God’s image, he “is his father’s son” – he thinks like God, he has the same values as God, he is “just like” God. In this passage Luke is telling us that Jesus is more than what Simeon thought; Jesus is more than bringing the light (to Gentiles), he is the light walking among us. Luke is saying if you want to know what God is like we can, and no need to look further: God is revealed in the life and work of Jesus. This isn’t a story about biology, it’s a story about what it means to be God’s child.
But what is really important about this story is that it isn’t just about Jesus. In this story (and throughout Luke’s gospel), what is truly life-giving (and Be Warned: Life Changing) is that if we also have been baptized, we (as in each of us) – having also been made in the image of God – are also beloved sons and beloved daughters, in whom God delights; therefore we also can grow into thinking like God, hold the same values as God, bring the light of God – even Be the Light – to our neighbours just as Jesus was.2
This story calls us to remember that by our baptism we are in the family of God and we are to be like those apples who have not fallen far from the tree. We are called re-member, re-embody, our baptism and to pray to God, who loves us like a parent: what does it mean to be born into this new way of living? What does it mean to be part of the family of God? And in prayer, if we listen, we will hear “you are my child, my beloved, and in you I delight”. You.
How do you make space to listen in prayer? What do you hear?
That is what “spirituality”, or “being spiritual is”. It’s creating ways for our heart to know the tree from which we are nourished, and then finally to really hear the truth of this phrase “you are my child, my beloved, and in you I delight”. And when we do, we will receive healing, and then, empowered by the Holy Spirit within us, we live into this way of life. We will live as a beloved of God, whose behaviour will reveal God into the world, because each are an apple that doesn’t fall to far from the tree.
Some notes: photo credit: contemplative.org/at-her-eucharist; Specific references and further reading: 1 Ronald J. Allan, workingpreacher.org accessed by textweek.com Jan 23/19; 2 https://rethinkredochurch.com/2019/01/07/shall-we-gather-at-the-river-but-not-just-any-river/ 3 http://www.davidlose.net/2019/01/the-baptism-of-our-lord-c-forgiveness-and-so-much-more/
Never On A Sunday 