When I was a child my parents used to use a phrase with me when they corrected me: “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” And of course, when I questioned them about it the response was: “Wait until you have children of your own!” As usual, my parents were right on the money. Taking the keys away from a son who tended to abuse the privilege of driving was hard on him, but it was harder on us. We hated to see the boy have to go through what he had to go through. But as a parent you gotta do what you gotta do. Every child in that position also entertains the idea that the parents' love for them is somehow lessened by their negative behavior. As every good parent does, they offered assurances of their love at any and odd times. Yet even so, I did not really understand it until I became a parent myself, and becoming a grandparent makes it glaringly obvious: There is NOTHING my children or grandchild could do that would make me love them with less than my whole heart! It's not because of what they do, it's because of who they are, and who I am.

In this sense the love of a parent is an imperfect reflection of the love of our Father, God. His love for us is unconditional, and therefore, the pleasure that He takes in the fact that we are His children is something we cannot change or alter in any way. That pleasure is taken, not earned, we cannot gain the Father's love, and we cannot stop it. It is positional, not propositional: It is predicated on our position as God’s children by creation and redemption—neither of which are our doing. Now, some things that I do He doesn't approve of, but in the midst of my sin, below and more fundamental than His dislike of my behavior, or the pain He feels at the alienation my sin causes, He loves me and He takes pleasure in the fact that I am His son, and the same is true of you.

This is shown in today's Gospel lesson. John is just the narrator, he's like that sign on Patriot Furniture—flashy and eye-catching, but pointing to something far more significant! The story is really about who Jesus is and who the Father is and the relationship between the two. Jesus is shown in the center of the Father’s will, filled with the Spirit, (we see the Trinity in this passage,) and revealing the Father’s heart: John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.” Jesus is shown on the face of the Earth, incarnate God standing in our turf, sharing the Father's heart with us, bringing us back into relationship with Him. Jesus is shown in the waters of baptism. Jesus' baptism reveals His identity as Son of God and creates the path for us. We, baptized into Him, become part of Him in the heart of the Father. Romans 6:4 says, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Jesus baptism reveals His action, for He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus was baptized, baptism is for us a birth: It makes us sons and daughters of God, positions us in the heart of the Father. And it is a bath: It washes away the sinful bent that alienates us from the Father, ourselves and the earth, and allows us to know the Father's loving heart.

So what does that mean to us?

To get to know Jesus you have to start with the heart of the Father. The Father’s creation turned against Him and became alienated from Him. The fourth century mystic Makarios said that God’s love for us is like that of a mother who cannot help but pick up her crying baby. The love of God drives Him to reconcile with us with even greater urgency. But we could not do it, so He sent His only begotten Son to create the way. Jesus is the only-begotten of the Father, He alone bears in His own being true and ultimate reality. He alone can and does redeem fallen and broken creation. Yet Jesus at the same time is our Brother. It is as we follow His path that we are brought back into community with the Father, He walks the path of humanity with us, only at humanity’s highest potential. He is the path into that dynamic love relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And so as He Himself said, "If you have seen me you have seen the Father." Jesus is the great revealer of the Father's heart, and the path to it.

So what does it mean to be one who is beloved of God, one in whom God is well pleased? It means to know that our existence is good, not neutral, not evil. God takes delight in our existence. It's something He actively maintains, because He believes we are worth it. Whether we know it or not, we are precious to Him. Our existence is so important to Him that He went to incredible personal sacrifice to come back into relationship with us. It sounds trite to think that God would have sent Jesus to die for you even if you were the only sinner on earth, but it's true.

It means that we bear in our being the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of Jesus. Not content to just stand beside us, He has to be IN us. By virtue of our baptism and faith the Holy Spirit resides in us, and wants to transform us as we learn to live in relationship with Jesus.

It means He is wooing us into a relationship by that Holy Spirit. Just like a couple who live together for an extended time learn to live in and through one another in a beautiful way, so He desires that kind of ongoing, ever increasing intimacy, and through that relationship He wants to extend Himself into our world, to hear the people we hear, to speak with the people we speak with, to touch the people we touch.

Jesus showed us that when God thinks of us He gets a smile on His face. Oh, he may wince now and then, and He may discipline us, but underneath, always ready to spring forth, is that silly little grin that just finds us wonderful! Just picture God in heaven looking down on us. Look closely: See the look of love in His eyes, feel the tender compassion in His heart, and know that what we do will all happen in His hand and will accomplish His purposes, for He is a loving Father who takes great pleasure in us.

Fr. Paul Moore+