ADVENT BLOG Named by God - BELOVED SON

“. . . and behold, a voice from heaven said,

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased””

(Matthew Matthew 3: 17)

One of the lasting lessons of studying Psychology was how influential what we say to each other can be.  A throwaway statement or a consistent calling of names can do untold damage.  The more we call some “stupid”, a word I honestly detest, the more they can, in certain circumstances, believe that they are just that.  The same is true of the word like precious because that builds up from within rather than destroy.

Although this exchange is directed towards Jesus at his baptism, the word beloved and the whole phrase itself expressing pleasure, expresses a central truth about who God is and how he views him in his heart of hearts.  It firstly confirms that loving relationship of Father and Son revealing again who Jesus is.  It reveals something of the tenderness of God towards him.  It testifies to God as abundantly loving - overflowing with love because love is at then very heart of who he is and how he treats both Jesus and all of his children.  Love inspires everything about him because GOD IS LOVE.

It also indicates how previous we are to God as his much beloved children, children who are precious to him, children he wants to bring pleasure to him in every aspect of their lives.  The affirmation is in the immediate context of the Baptism of Christ which is full of such rich imagery and unimaginable truths.  There is also something deeper and wider in its scope and that is to do with why Jesus came and why he was baptised in the first place.  He didn’t need to be baptised because as a cleansing rite it was a symbol of the washing away of sin - Christ was sinless.  He didn’t need to die either yet, that was his choice out of love inspired by the love of the Father.  Here we see Jesus immersing himself in water and, symbolically, immersing himself in the life of the world and our lives - the good and the bad.  In this very act and all that was to follow he brought to life the reality of how precious we are to him and to God.

In the bad, he immerses himself in all that we struggle with including that greatest struggle which is death itself.  The hope we cling onto is that immersed in baptism Jesus re-emerged as he did from the tomb and as we can in this life and in the life to come.

Through the noise around you, can you hear the voice of God speak to you?  In reading these words, what does God say to you and what difference does that make?

Here is love, vast as the ocean, loving-kindness as the flood,

when the Prince of Life, our Ransom, shed for us His precious blood.

Who His love will not remember? Who can cease to sing His praise?

He can never be forgotten throughout heav'n's eternal days.

(William Rees)