“Beloved”
January 12, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
Here we are. Christmas is over. The wise ones have returned to their own lands. The shepherds have returned to the hills with their sheep. Mary, and Joseph, and the baby Jesus have fled to Egypt to escape the killing of the innocents, and then returned to present Jesus at the temple, where Simeon and Anna get to praise and prophesy about this awaited one. In Luke’s gospel, we have the story of a tween Jesus staying in the temple to listen and to question the teachers, when the rest of the family returned home to Nazareth after a visit to Jerusalem. After a frantic three day search, and eventually finding Jesus, he said to his parents, “Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?” And the rest of his growing years are shrouded in mystery. Fast forward to year 30.
We have met John the Baptist in recent weeks, the weirdo prophet who is dunking people into the Jordan as a “restart” to their lives. Everyone is showing up: even tax collectors and soldiers! And many people are wondering whether John might be the one they have been waiting for—the Messiah. He commands crowds. He speaks truth to power. He is preparing the way for so many to “get right with God.” And John hears their murmurings. And John doesn’t try to step into the limelight. No, John knows his place, his part in the divine story. “One who is more powerful is coming” he tells the people. “I am not worthy even to stoop and untie his sandals. I baptize with water—he will baptize with Holy Spirit and fire!”
That’s a pretty good opening act. The stage is set for Jesus to come onto the scene. And after that build up, you would expect that there would be trumpets blowing a fanfare, and red carpets thrown down on the ground, and a big deal at the arrival of this powerful one. But that’s not what we get. The late great master preacher, Fred Craddock pointed out “the extraordinary, stunning power of two little words in Luke’s account: ‘Jesus also.’”
See it says, “Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized…” We might almost miss the event if we weren’t paying attention! And obviously John didn’t know that the One had showed up. For he would have stopped the line. He would have pointed Jesus out to others.
He might even have said (as he does in another gospel—“it is you who should be baptizing me!”). But no, in Luke, Jesus appears as one of the crowd, stands in line with the others, and goes into the water just like they do, and comes back out, dripping, and “made new.”
Almost unbelievable. Except in a story where an angel appears to a nobody young girl with incredible news; except in a story where it is only shepherds, the lowest of the low, who are invited to come and see the newborn babe; Except in a story where the high and mighty are silenced because of their pride, while the meek and lowly are lifted up. Except in a story like the one the writer of the gospel of Luke is telling. The story of God coming to be with us, Emmanuel. Born in a manger because there was no room in the inn.
We humans love celebrities. We like to have them dress up and parade on red carpets. We follow them on social media and listen to their every like and dislike. We want to watch their every move, because, I think, we want to find out what makes them so special. And so, of course, over the years, we have focused on Jesus being special—I mean, he is the King of kings and Lord of lords, for goodness sake. He is “the beloved.” He is our Messiah. Christ, the Lord.
And none of that is wrong. Jesus is all those things. But I am struck, as Fred Craddock was, that that wasn’t the point for Luke. Or, at least, that wasn’t the point at this particular time in his story. When Jesus came on the scene, it wasn’t obvious who he was. Because Jesus was just like us. Looked like us. Acted like us. Stood in line, like us. Came to be baptized, like us. God was really serious about this Emmanuel stuff--God with us. Not God showing up to be praised and fawned over and adored as a better than all the rest type of person. But God as the man next door, the girl friend, the homeless guy sleeping under the bridge. That’s not just extraordinary, that’s shocking.
And I know some of you might be saying, “okay, so it’s ‘Jesus also’ in that one passage, but what about the “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” part. Doesn’t that make Jesus different than the rest of us?” And here I want us to remember our passage from Isaiah: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine…Because you are precious in my sight and honored and I love you.” Beloved, yes. But Isaiah isn’t only talking about the suffering servant here.
Isaiah is talking about God’s people, Israel—and, I think, also about each and every constituent part of God’s people. Israel, Jacob is beloved of God. As each one of the tribes and each of the members of those tribes is beloved. As each one of us is beloved—precious and honored. That is how God thinks of us. For God so loved the world…
The anonymity of Jesus continues. For it is as Jesus is praying (a very private, internal moment found only in the gospel of Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism) that the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove and we are privy to what Jesus hears: a voice from heaven declaring him “the Beloved.” I wonder what Jesus thought about that. Did he think, “boy, I’m pretty special”? Or did he see it as a continuation of what God had always said—that we, created by God, in God’s image, are precious and beloved. We are the children of God. And when we turn around (repent), when we return to God, when we get in the baptismal line with everyone else, not thinking we are more or less important, God is well pleased.
Now, I know that there is one part of the reading from Luke that I have not yet addressed, and it seems like it might undo much of what I’ve said. It’s that pesky “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” And here we are back to the us and them, the good and the bad, those of us that are in and those “others” who are not, right?
The SALT project commentary suggests a different view. It talks about this wheat and chaff as an image of “preservation…not division.” Most of us are not farmers and may not be familiar with how a stalk of wheat is composed. Every grain of wheat has a husk, a covering, that protects it as it grows. But we don’t want to eat that husk which is collectively called “chaff.” It needs to be separated from the grain itself. And some farmers today still use wind to separate one from the other. Grain from husk. Not good grain from bad grain. The idea is that threshing is done to collect ALL the grain.
And this dovetails right into John the Baptist’s message of repentance and baptism. He is already preaching about people stripping away all the husk of their lives, all the things that keep them from God and from being their best selves, and then suggesting that they be dunked (baptized) in water and come up “new.”
This more powerful one, as John sees it, will be doing the same thing, but on steroids. This Messiah won’t baptize with water but with Holy Spirit and fire. The result is much the same. The chaff will be burned away, leaving the grain, the kernel, the seed, us, ready for life with God.
As SALT puts it, “Like an expert restoring a work of art, the wind and fire remove what otherwise gets in the way: the anxieties, self-absorption, apathy, or greed that make us less generous, less fair, or less respectful of others. Each of us requires restoration, liberation from whatever “husks” are holding us back.” And, they point out, in the continuation of Luke’s story (the book of Acts)—at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit as wind and fire will indeed fall on all assembled, just as John has predicted.
So even the “winnowing fork” passage does not distract from the wide openness of God’s message in Luke. We have everyone gathering at the river, even those who are least liked—tax collectors and soldiers! ALL are offered the opportunity to slough off all the dirt and grime of our wayward lives—to separate the chaff from the grain of our best selves, and be baptized, symbolizing our new clean self. We have the Emmanuel, the God with us, mixed in with everyone else. And we have the heavenly voice echoing what has been said down the centuries: “Beloved Child, I am well pleased.”
We have just recently crested into this new year of 2025, and this might be a perfect Sunday to turn over a new leaf, or to separate the chaff of our life from the grain. Yes, this is the Baptism of the Lord Sunday. But after reflecting on our passage today, it seems like that name kind of misses the point. So let’s just call it “Baptism Sunday”--a time when we can get in line, with all those others, including Jesus—so we might turn our lives around and present ourselves again to God.
And so, I’m going to offer you the opportunity to have a cross of water marking your hand as you are in line for communion. It is a reminder of our solidarity with one another. It is a gesture as we continue to let go of what keeps us away from God. It is a testament to how God calls us to shine forth, and to share what we can with the world. It is ultimately a whisper of God’s words to us all—we are beloved, precious in God’s sight.
In that love, may we be empowered to do more than we ever imagined. May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.