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“Why look, he’s all grown up!”
That’s what they say, isn’t it? When my sons Chris and David
come home to Michigan and bump into someone they knew when
they were children in Dexter, the folks always say, “Are
these your boys? Why look...they are all grown up! Who’d
have believed it?” Most discouraging for them but
delightful for me is when people say, “Why, you look just
like your dad.”
All grown up. It happens so quickly, doesn’t
it? Tevei sings,
Sunrise,
sunset,
Quickly fly the years.
One moment following another
Laden with happiness and tears.
What’s it like for you when your adult child
comes home?
My neighbor
Floyd used to say his kids brought him double joy: joy when
they come and joy when they leave. Now I know what he meant.
My boys are all grown up, but even so, when they come home,
the tendency is to try to slip back into old parent-child
roles:
-
the desire to protect
-
the urge to rescue and to try to fix
their world for them
-
to try to mother them like we did when
they were small
-
worst of all, to tell them what to do!
Then we realize they are adults and our
relationship must change.
The love and
caring is still there, but it is expressed in a new way.
When they were little, our love was an intervening
love—protecting and surrounding them, shielding them from
all that might hurt them. Now that they are grown up, such
mothering would be smothering. Now love is
supporting and empowering, a love which frees them to be
their own person.
After about twenty silent years, Jesus
reappears.
Last time we
saw him in the Gospels, he was twelve years old, finding his
way, asking questions, discovering who he was, that he must
be about his father’s business. Now all grown up, now a
young adult ready to move out into his career, Jesus comes
to his second cousin, John, for baptism. He steps into the
shallow waters of the Jordan River and feels the cold
trickle of murky water running down his sun-burned,
dark-skinned back as John sprinkles a handful of the muddy
Jordan on his head of curly, black, middle-eastern hair,
river water dripping off his stiff Palestinian beard.
And when he
had been baptized (Matthew says), the heavens opened and he
saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove. He heard a
voice from heaven...
And what was the word he heard from his
heavenly parent?
This is my beloved son with whom I am well
pleased.
(Matt. 3:17)
All four
Gospels record the event and the words. In Matthew and John,
it appears to have been addressed to the crowd or to John.
But in Mark and Luke the word is directed to Jesus: “You
are my beloved.” We don’t know for sure who heard it. But
whether others did or not, for the young adult Jesus it came
as a word of confirmation and assurance: “Son of mine, you
are loved. I am pleased with you.” For Jesus, at the
beginning of his ministry, it was a quiet, empowering,
confirming moment when in the depth of his soul he knew who
he was—beloved by God, chosen and blessed.
I lived in
Nashville long enough to appreciate the Gospel in country
music and to know that Sonny James had it just about right:
On the wings
of a snow white dove
He sent his pure, sweet love,
The sign from above
On the wings of a dove.
AND I WOULD SUGGEST THAT IS HOW
GOD COMES TO MOST OF US, MOST OF THE TIME.
In the same
way God related to the adult Jesus on this day, God relates
to us the way an adult parent relates to an adult child—not
always intervening and protecting, not smothering and
controlling, but freeing and empowering us to be the mature
disciples we were created to be:
“You
are mine. You are loved.”
That is all. But that is enough.
It is not
unlike the adult child who calls home from across the
country or around the world. The phone rings. You hear a
familiar voice speaking from Tacoma or Missoula or
Philadelphia or Seattle or New York or Gettysburg or
Copenhagen or Zimbabwe….we’ve had them from all of the
above:
“How’s
it going?”
“Oh,
not so good.”
“Is
there anything I can do?”
“Not
really, I just needed to talk about it.”
For the
parent, the temptation is to try to fix things, to make it
all better, but the best we can do is say, “I love
you. I believe in you. You can do it. It will be all
right.”
I am
convinced that most often God comes to us in quiet moments,
as a still, small voice, as gentle as the flight of a dove,
more like the freeing love of a parent who respects us and
believes in us and sets us free.
LET’S BE HONEST...OFTEN WE WISH IT WERE
OTHERWISE.
1. Like Jesus, we find ourselves in the
wilderness valley of temptation.
In times of
testing and turmoil and terrifying doubt, in the wilderness
of weariness, we experience times when we would like to cry
out and say, “God, don’t just stand there—do
something! Change things. Turn the rocky stones in my life
into healing bread. Get me out of here!” We wish God
would drive away the temptations and turmoil and carry us
through the skies on flowery beds of ease, but instead he
walks with us through the lonesome valley, stands by us in
our trial, silently supports us in our struggle, saying
simply, “You are my beloved son or daughter. You are
mine. I’ll go with you through the valley.” That is all, but
that is enough.
2. Like Jesus in the Garden of
Gethsemane, we find ourselves in the garden of agonizing
decisions, difficult choices, and impending dread.
We struggle
in prayer until we feel like the life blood is being drained
from us, trying to find the way. And we want to cry out,
“God, take this cup away! Let this cup pass.” But
like Jesus, the cup remains. We face the time of struggle,
with only the reassuring word, “You are my beloved son,
beloved daughter. I will be with you in the garden.” That is
all, but that is enough.
3. Like St. Paul, how many
times have we prayed, “Lord, take this thorn out of my
flesh”?
In Paul’s
letter to the Corinthians, he says he prayed three times for
the Lord to take away the thorn in his flesh. We don’t know
just what Paul’s “thorn” was. Some think he was an
epileptic. Maybe it was the fact that he was so short.
Preachers tend to think he was speaking of a cantankerous
church member. But whatever it was, St. Paul says he prayed
three times for the thorn to be removed, yet the thorn
remained, and the only answer he received was, “My grace is
sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your
weakness.” (II Corinthians 12:7) That is all. But God’s
grace is sufficient…it is enough.
How many
times we would like God to come in and fight our fights,
solve our problems, heal all our boo-boos and save us from
the bullies, just like when we were in nursery school. But
instead he sends his love in the gentle spirit of a
heaven-sent dove and a still, small voice:
“You are
mine. You are loved. My grace is sufficient.”
That is all. But that is enough.
Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas asks:
What is the
plot of the Bible? It’s the story of a love affair, the love
affair between God and the human race. That’s what the Bible
is trying to tell us, from the very beginning and unto the
very end, again and again, God says, “I love you, I love
you.”
God says it
in creation, and at the giving of the law to Moses; God says
it through the liturgy of the priests and the thunderings of
the prophets; God says it in a stable at Bethlehem and on a
cross at Calvary; and God will say it at the consummation of
all things, in a moment yet to come.
(J. Ellsworth Kalas, “The
Universe, A Stage,”
Church of the Saviour, Cleveland, Ohio, January 5, 1986)
You are mine. You are loved.
For Jesus,
the water of baptism was a sign of assurance, a moment of
deep knowing in the core of his being, in a splash of water
and the whisper of a dove, in the chill of the river and
chill down the spine, a moment of confirmation and a
reminder of grace.
And so it is
for us...today...here...now. This water is the mark of God’s
redeeming grace, not rebaptism, but a reminder of our
deliverance from sin. It is the sign of God’s immense,
incredible, overwhelming love for us, made known in Christ
Jesus. It is a word signed in the waters of our baptism and
sealed in the blood of his cross: “You are mine. You are
loved.”
I grew up in
a town and a time where we went to camp meeting in the
summer and revival meetings in the fall. Every summer, there
was Cherry Run camp meeting with two preaching services a
day and powerful altar calls at night. Every fall, a
traveling evangelist would visit the church, preach his
heart out, and get us to respond to the altar call to get
right with God for another year. Usually it was us teenagers
who responded to the invitations, and I give thanks for
those confirming experiences in my youth and childhood.
But it’s
funny. As I look back on it, it was always the adults who
believed we needed a revival, and it was always the kids who
went forward. I don’t remember any of those stalwart saints
of the church ever admitting their need of revival or of
God’s forgiveness or grace. They thought it was good and
necessary...for somebody else. Today I want to
say it’s...
Not my
brother nor my sister, but it’s me, oh, Lord,
Standing in the need of prayer.
All of us
need those times of revival, those points of grace, when we
allow the living water of Christ to flow through us and
revive us; to renew our commitment and refresh our souls; to
reclaim our identity in Christ; to touch once again the
waters of our baptism and remember who we are and whose we
are, once again to hear God’s voice, like the gentle breeze
of a dove’s wings:
“You
are mine. You are loved.”
That is all, but that is enough.
The first
time I tried this service of Reaffirmation of the Baptismal
Covenant was at Court Street Church in Flint. The first time
we offered it, the other pastor and I invited people to come
forward to touch their hand in the water and kneel at the
communion rail to remember their baptism. We weren’t sure
anyone would do it, but we did, and to our surprise, almost
immediately the aisles and the kneeling rail were crowded
with people doing just that. After the service, one of our
oldest members, a saint in that church who has since gone on
to her glory, came out with tears still in her eyes and
said, “You know, I haven’t thought about my baptism in
years. I had forgotten what it means to know God loves me
until today. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
Last year at
this time we had just announced that we would be leaving Ann
Arbor the week before this service. One of my dearest
friends, who is struggling with Parkinson’s disease, made
his way down the aisle, dipped his shaking hand in the
water, but then instead of touching his own forehead, he
strained to put his wet hand on my head. And you know what?
Like Jesus, I could almost hear the words, “You are mine.
You are loved.”
Jesus is all grown up.
He comes to
his second cousin, John. He comes to the waters and there he
hears the promise. And I believe God comes to us as God came
to the grown-up Jesus. He meets us in the maturity of our
years and experience, and in the silent depths of our souls,
a still, small voice echoes:
“You are
loved. You are mine.”
That is all. And that is enough.
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