Beloved
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You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. -Mark 1:11
The First Sunday after Epiphany is the Feast of the Baptism of Christ. So this Sunday, we will be marking Jesus’ initiation into his earthly ministry. As Mark tells the story, when Jesus went to be baptized by John, he came up out of the water, saw the heavens split open, the Spirit descending upon him as if it were a bird and a voice came from heaven telling him that he was God’s own child, who was beloved, and with whom God was well pleased.
It’s not really clear, in Mark or in any of the other gospels, if anyone but Jesus experienced these cosmic events. Did anyone else see the dove? Did anyone else hear God’s voice?
Most of us were baptized as infants and don’t have a conscious memory of what we saw or heard when we were baptized. And many who have been baptized as adults have not seen doves or heard voices. But we certainly all have felt the love of God coming to us through our families and congregation when we were baptized. Because - don’t we all feel delighted when we’re at a baptism? Don’t we incarnate God’s love and delight to the child and their families - or the adult baptisand - every time? The experience that all the synoptic gospels describe at Jesus’ baptism is very cosmic thing, but we declare it is happening whenever anyone is baptized. Somehow, through our baptism, we are mystically “sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
This Sunday, in honor of Jesus’ baptism, we will once again affirm our own baptisms. I wonder what cosmic things will come to us as we once again share the words of our baptismal covenant together and get sprinkled with baptismal water? I invite you to come with open hearts and minds to feel the love and delight of God on this Baptism of Christ Sunday, as we are reminded just whose we are.
