Baptism and Belovedness
a sermon on Jesus’ baptism and the power of knowing you are beloved
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” ~Matthew 3:13–17 NRSVUE
Have you ever spent time around somebody who clearly knows they have nothing to prove and no one to impress? Many people pretend to know these things about themselves, but those people are usually jerks. I’m talking about people who know deep down that they are enough just as they are. Interestingly, children typically believe this truth about themselves, but we tend to forget it as we grow up. It’s rare that people rediscover their sense of enoughness as they mature.
Marty and I were fortunate enough to study with one such person. Dr. John Claypool was a well-known and revered preacher. Now, he wasn’t famous in the mega-church pastor plastic-looking hair, #preachersNsneakers sort of way. Have you heard of those Instagram pages that are pictures of celebrity pastors wearing insanely expensive shoes?
Well, John Claypool was the opposite of all of that. He was extremely humble and kind. His honest preaching resonated with people worldwide, especially those who experienced loss. You see, Dr. Claypool lost a child to Leukemia.
He did what he knew was right, even when it was risky. For example, Dr. Claypool knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the early 1960's, he went out to lunch with his friend while the civil rights leader was in Louisville. Someone spotted the pastors together and took a photo which ended up on the front page of the newspaper. Claypool nearly lost his job because of it.
Before Marty and I got to study with Dr. Claypool, he preached somewhere nearby. Our professors encouraged their students to take advantage of the chance to hear him, so Marty and I went. Afterward, Marty marveled that he’d never seen grace overflow from a person like that before. That was a spot-on description of the man.
Years later, while we were studying with Dr. Claypool, he was invited to preach at The National Cathedral. Of course, that’s a big deal. And numerous of our nation’s highest-ranking officials came to hear him, including then Secretary of State Colin Powell.
During the service, the reader for the day read the wrong Scripture passage. Instead of risking embarrassing this person or drawing attention to the fact that they had made a mistake, John Claypool ditched his prepared sermon. Instead, he preached entirely off the cuff so that his message connected to the Scripture that was read. He did this at The National Cathedral. In front of the Secretary of State. Now, that is a person who knows they have nothing to prove and nothing of value to lose.
Now, let’s shift to Jesus’ baptism.
As John the Baptist stands knee-deep and dripping wet in the Jordan River, he proclaims to his followers that while he baptizes with water for repentance, one is coming who will baptize metaphorically with Holy Spirit and fire. As John preaches about the coming Messiah, Jesus inches his way through the crowd. Then, dropping his sandals on the muddy river bank, he wades into the water and asks his cousin to baptize him.
At first, John objects. He has just told the crowd that he is unworthy of even holding the sandals of the coming Messiah. How can he possibly baptize him? Talk about jumping rank! John protests, saying, “No, you need to baptize me, not the other way around.”
Jesus presses him, though. “It is the right thing to do, and will be faithful to God’s path for you. Baptize me.” And so John does.
It’s curious, isn’t it, to think about why Jesus would get baptized? John has said that baptism is about the forgiveness of sins. But why would the one who never sinned seek forgiveness?
Whereas John says baptism is about repentance, Jesus connects the act with righteousness. He tells his reluctant cousin, “It is the righteous thing to do.” Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, righteousness has a relational element to it. It’s not those who never mess up who are righteous, but those who trust God.
Perhaps by being baptized, Jesus models that it is good to humble ourselves enough to repent and seek forgiveness. Maybe he’s showing the crowd that he trusts God, or perhaps before starting his ministry, Jesus reminds himself that he trusts God. I wonder if Jesus’ baptism might be all those purposes flowing together like a tiny wave of baptismal water washing over him.
As Jesus emerges from the water, something incredible happens. The clouds part. The Holy Spirit, looking like a dove, descends on him. And the voice of God proclaims from the heavens, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
The voice of God speaking words of love to Jesus while the Holy Spirit touches him that’s about as close as we get to a doctrine of the Trinity in Scripture. A moment saturated with holiness. A moment in which God says, “You are my child. I love you. You make me pleased as punch.”
Every one of us longs to know that we are genuinely and deeply loved. That’s part of being human. And, while we seem to know that when we’re born, even if we have wonderful parents, we seem to lose our innate knowing of our belovedness along the way.
Of course, we do because we are bombarded from all directions with lies that tell us otherwise. Almost every ad that shows up in my social media feeds is something promising to make me look younger or thinner. I see more of those ads than I do y’alls cute little posts, which are the sole reason I ever get on social media. Whether on social media or tv or at work or school, I bet that you, too, receive a constant barrage of messages that tell you that could be better, happier, more successful, more attractive, stronger, more powerful, or smarter. All of these messages communicate the lie that you are not enough.
These lies put us on an imaginary ladder where we think we can climb our way to power, happiness, and a place of being worthy of love. But you know what? That imaginary ladder has no end. There will always be a higher rung to climb. On this ladder, we’ll always be at least one step away from being worthy of radical, unconditional love.
This week I listened to a profound podcast with Sonya Renee Taylor, a Black queer poet, activist, and author of the book The Body is not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love. She is adamant that radical self-love is the path to liberation, not just for individuals but for us collectively. In her conversation on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, Taylor talks about how no matter where we are on the ladder, there’s always someone below us. Not only do we harm ourselves by trying to climb a never-ending ladder toward love, but each time we step onto a higher rung, we also step on someone below us. And there is always someone below us.
There’s truth to the saying that hurt people hurt people. But what if the reverse is true: Loved people love people. Or that people who know their belovedness love others well?
It’s significant that Jesus gets baptized before he begins his ministry. I love that God says to Jesus, “You are my child. You are my beloved. I’m so darn pleased with you,” before Jesus does a single thing to earn it. God tells Jesus this before the temptation, before he turns water to wine, before he heals a single person or converts a single soul. God tells Jesus that he’s beloved long before Jesus pleads in the garden or cries out from the cross. Jesus is loved just because he is. And so are you.
What if we step off of the ladder and into the baptismal waters? There we find humility and forgiveness, trust, belonging, and belovedness. Wading in the waters, we can look each other in the eyes and build Dr. King’s dream of a beloved community overflowing with justice, solidarity, and love.
I’ve told you before about these prayer beads that I often use. Each bead represents something and guides my prayers. For example, one of them represents baptism. For months, my prayer for the baptism bead was, “Thank you for my baptism, which reminds me I am Your beloved. More often than not, I hope you are well-pleased with me.”
One day it dawned on me that the second part of my prayer is me doubting my belovedness. “More often than not, I hope you are well-pleased with me.” That’s me questioning that God would be pleased with me. So I stopped saying it, and now I simply pray, “Thank you for my baptism, which reminds me I am Your beloved.” It’s not always easy for me to pray these words without a including a caveat, but doing so is a discipline to help me accept my innate belovedness.
Yes, baptism is about humbling ourselves enough to seek forgiveness and committing ourselves to the work of repentance. Yes, baptism is an act of faithfulness and a symbol of trusting God. AND baptism is a moment when we know our belovedness. The Spirit of God rests upon us, and God, who is Love, proclaims, “You are my child. I love you. You are the apple of my eye.” And our baptism becomes a marker that our memory can return to every time we start to doubt that.
Let us live as people who know they are loved. Let’s step off of the ladder and into the waters where we look each other in the eye as equals and where we all know that we are all profoundly beloved.
