Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have
called you by name, you are mine.
You are precious in my sight, and honored,
and I love you, . . .
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am
well pleased.”
Listen to those
words.
Words spoken to Israel.
Words spoken to Jesus. Words spoken to
us.
These words
express the very foundation of the Gospel.
Just imagine, or
better yet, experience God whispering those words in your ear with tender
compassion in his voice.
Just wow.
On Friday I did
something that ended up being more difficult than I anticipated.
I was scrolling
through the contact list in my phone, and came across the listing for both my
mom and dad.
I thought to
myself that it was time to delete those listings. Dad’s been gone over a year now, mom a few
years, and needless to say those phone numbers will no longer reach them.
Delete.
And then a wave
of grief came over me once again. It
seemed so final.
It brought up
numerous memories.
One of the
bittersweet memories that I have of my mom and dad is of their reticence, and
unfortunately, their not saying what needed to be said.
I have called you by name, you are mine.
You are precious in my sight, and honored,
and I love you, . . .
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am
well pleased.”
Deep within my
soul, I wanted to hear these words spoken to me by my mom and dad.
Too often, there
was simply silence.
Actually, mom and
dad had a peculiarity about them in that they spoke of us, like this, but to
others and rarely to our face.
I have two
brothers and three sisters.
So often what we
heard from our parents were words that lifted up and praised our siblings for
all their accomplishments—but no such words for us.
They would tell
everyone else how proud they were of each of us, but rarely speak those words
to our face.
I’ve mused over
the years that this tendency of theirs produced six of the most insecure
overachievers you could imagine. We
heard mom and dad praise the others, and we tried diligently to earn their
praise as well, not realizing that they bragged about us all, just not
within our hearing.
One notable
exception to this occurred at my younger brother’s wedding.
The wedding took
place in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, just down the road from Penn State where my
soon to be sister-in-law was a professor.
At the time my brother was a professor at Dartmouth.
We had the
rehearsal dinner catered in a room at Penn State, and during it Dad got up to
share a few words.
He talked of his
humble beginnings on the farm in South Dakota, and how he was overwhelmed with
pride now. He was struck by the
educational accomplishments of each of his children, and how natural it felt
for us to gather at one of the most prestigious universities in the land.
A lawyer, a
nurse, a psychologist, a pastor, a doctor, and my brother the mathematics professor.
It was a rare
occasion that dad made the effort to communicate his pride in us, his children.
I thank God that I heard those words then, and
cherish them now.
I have called you by name, you are mine.
You are precious in my sight, and honored,
and I love you, . . .
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am
well pleased.”
When you hear
these words from the Bible do you hear them as God’s word for you?
Or do you believe
that they actually were intended for someone else?
Those words from
Isaiah were spoken to the people of Israel when they were in exile in
Babylon.
And the words
from the Gospel lesson were spoken to Jesus at his baptism.
That said, it is
easy to hear those words as intended for another, and not for us.
Like children who
hear their parent’s praise of their siblings, and not of themselves, we may
find ourselves doubting that these words are actually intended for us.
But they are.
They are spoken
to you, and to me.
God has been
trying to get that message across to his people for years. And we would not listen or believe that he
was speaking to us.
We doubted.
We were
overwhelmed with our own insecurity that we didn’t trust these words.
And so God came
up with a plan.
He would touch us
as he spoke those words to us.
He would splash
water over our heads.
He would fill us
with his body and blood.
How do you know
God loves you and not just someone else?
Your head is
wet, your stomach filled.
In 1989 I did a
funeral. A young fifteen year old girl
had been in an auto accident, and I had baptized her in the emergency room at
the request of her parents.
I spoke of the
baptism during my funeral sermon.
After the service
was over, I saw a member of my congregation, Linnea, in my office sobbing.
I sought to
comfort her, and she shared what had troubled her.
Many years
before, she had a child, Randall, who was born with some problems. They kept Randall at the hospital. About two weeks later, while she was at home
for a break, Linnea got a call from the
hospital that Randall had died.
When Linnea told
her pastor, his response was to say “What a shame and tragedy. We could have
baptized him, but now it’s too late. He
won’t be saved.”
Her baby had just
died and her pastor told her that because they hadn’t done the baptism Randall
would spend eternity in hell.
The reason God
gave us the sacraments is because he wanted us to hear and understand these
words:
I have called you by name, you are mine.
You are precious in my sight, and honored,
and I love you, . . .
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am
well pleased.”
But we have to
often taken those words of unconditional love and placed conditions on them.
If you’re not
baptized these words are not for you.
If you’ve sinned
these words are not for you.
We have failed to
welcome, love, and serve all people, and so they struggle to understand that
these words are for them.
We have told
people like Linnea that their baby is going to hell because a baptism didn’t
take place.
Baptism and
communion are God’s way of reassuring us that indeed, these words are for us.
In no way should
we ever use the sacraments to condemn others or ourselves.
Just hear these
words:
I have called you by name, you are mine.
You are precious in my sight, and honored,
and I love you, . . .
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am
well pleased.”
One day we will
stand before the Lord our God.
We will see him
face to face.
What do you
expect God to say?
Too often our
fear is that God will confront us with our sins and we will stand before him condemned.
I’m becoming more
convinced that we have spent too much time consumed by our sinfulness and
afraid of our fate.
One of the
reasons I struggled to understand how much my parents loved me, is because when
I heard how much they loved my siblings I was also aware of my own
failures. I considered myself the black sheep
of the family.
Perhaps we’ve
spent too much time speaking of sin, and not enough time speaking of God’s
unconditional love.
I have called you by name, you are mine.
You are precious in my sight, and honored,
and I love you, . . .
“You are my Son, my Daughter, the Beloved;
with you I am well pleased.”
Would that the
heavens would open this day, and the Spirit descend upon each of us like a
dove, and the Voice of God declare these words.
We need to hear
them.
Repeated.
Day by day for
the rest of our lives.
You can never say
“I love you” too many times.
God has been
saying it from all eternity and it hasn’t worn out yet.
I have called you by name, you are mine.
You are precious in my sight, and honored,
and I love you, . . .
“You are my Son, my Daughter, the Beloved;
with you I am well pleased.”
Amen
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