While I have many questions about how John the Baptism and his cousin Jesus felt and understood about the day John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, the final verse grabs my attention today. "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." The text does not tell us who heard the voice, whether it was the entire crowd clamoring to be baptized by the man wearing camel hair, John and Jesus or just Jesus. While God publicly announces Jesus to be the Son of God, the one that God loves beyond measure, the second half of the proclamation reveals something more powerful.
God states that God is well pleased with Jesus, end of statement. This short declaration comes with no additional comments, no justifications for God's opinion. "...I am well pleased." Period. End of statement. God's delight and pleasure comes not from things Jesus has done or accomplished, not because Jesus convinced his slightly older cousin (by only a few months) to baptism him, and not for things that Jesus will later do in his lifetime. Rather, God bold claims that God is well pleased with Jesus, just as he is.
The same message that God announced that day holds true today when God looks at each and every one of us. "I am well pleased with you. I love you beyond your imagination. You are perfect in my sight, just the way you are." Wow. We are talking about complete acceptance, unconditional love that will not let anything change God's mind. Think about that warm embrace and fidelity for a minute.
Instead of looking at our faults and failings, how many times we fall down or anything else that would put us in a negative light, God sees the beauty within us. We belong to the One who created and formed us before we were even conceived in our mother's womb, even before our ancestors existed. God's eyes brim with delight in looking at the perfect creation we are and will be.
Does it break God's heart when we walk away from God, the one who wants to be in full communion with us? Yes. Does it break God's heart when we show disrespect and harm God's creation through our thoughts and actions. Yes. Does it break God's heart when we place ourselves at the center of everything instead of seeing ourselves as part of a larger community and creation. But whenever we do these things, does it prevent God from loving us? No, by no means!
In giving us the freedom to make our own decisions and decide what is most important to us, God realizes that we may and likely will make choices not in sync with God's desires for us. However, in creating us, in shaping us in God's own image, our Maker promises to always love us, to always be ready to welcome us back when we stray from what God desires for us. Nothing we can ever do can stop God from remembering the delight in creating us, remembering every detail about us, from our eye color to the freckles on our face, from the beauty of our different skin tones to the precious sound of our laughter. Even when God's wrath against us reaches its height, God promises not to destroy all of creation, but to redeem and love it, helping build the path back to communion with one another.
As we feel the water pour over us in our baptism, we remember that in God we are made clean and pure, like newborn children who long to be held by the parents and kept safe. All of our guilt, our mistakes that we will make in our lives are washed away. While we might not see the Spirit of God descend on us as a dove like Jesus did, we can be assured that God seals us with the Holy Spirit and proclaims that we are God's Beloved, with whom God is and will be forever pleased.
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