Baptismal Belovedness

 

I remember my brown corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows.  I remember the ruby red shag carpet in the sanctuary and the dark wood.  I remember the sun streaming in through the large stained-glass window of surfer Jesus (with blue eyes, white skin, looking and gazing heavenward with long, flowing brown hair) praying in the garden of Gethsemane.  I remember my parents, brother, aunt, and uncle all standing around me at the age of eleven, as I was sprinkled with the baptismal water.  There was no booming James Earl Jones heavenly voice that moment.  There were no doves swooping and soaring around.  I don’t remember feeling different after my baptism but seared into my soul in that morning was God’s love.  I am not sure why my parents waited until I was eleven to part-take in this ritual.  I belong to a tradition where usually this sacrament is celebrated soon after the child is born.  In many ways, I am grateful I have that moment etched in my heart.

 

When I hear from Mark, “At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.””  God claims Jesus in the Jordon as he is cradled in John the Baptizer’s arms.  As they wade in the water (which is a reference to Genesis 1 where God surfs and sings in a duet with the watery chaos or in the time of Noah or wrestling with Jacob by the riverside).  Water is a sacred site.  Jordan is even more holy because that was where Joshua parted the waters, and the people of God crossed over into the promised land. 

 

There is the delicious detail in Mark about the sky splitting open and a Spirit descending.  Is there a place right now where your life is feeling split open?  This can be in life-giving or life-draining ways.  The splitting can be a shattering of a relationship/health/faith/community/family and so many more ways.  The splitting can be a holy opening that wasn’t there before, the proverbial window that opens when the door you wanted to use was locked tight.  Thirteen days into 2025, what is shifting, splitting, stirring within you?  How might God be amid that chaotic movement, just as God was in the beginning?  I encourage you to go to the waters today and maybe even wade in those waters (unless it is below 60 degrees, then just sit by the pool in the sun and imagine this).  As you listen to the water, maybe even splash some on your face, or take a bit of water and make the sign of the cross on your forehead.  Remember your baptism, maybe not literally, but that moment of God’s claim.  God says to everyone, “You are my beloved ~ my joy, with you I am well pleased.”  This is the truth from which we live our lives moment by moment.  May the God who meets you in the waters with grace and love that never lets you go surround and soak and saturate your life today.  Amen.