Marilu Thomas “Sealed and Marked”
Welcome to the year of Matthew! In the liturgical church, we have a three year cycle of gospel readings and this year is Matthew. If you’ve ever looked at the gospel of Matthew, it starts with a very long list of barely pronounceable names that are the genealogy of Jesus—names like Jehoshaphat, Rehoboam, and Zerubbabel. You could name your next child that—a good biblical name. There are even five women listed among the men. Have you ever wondered why all those names are in there? Why Matthew didn’t just say, “There were 42 generations and then Jesus.” It is because every single one of these people is important to Jesus. Every name is a person loved by God. No one is forgotten, useless or unseen. Just a number wouldn’t do. Author Madeleine L’Engle says that, “Naming is loving. When you are named you are loved.”
Today is the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord and the gospel from Matthew 3 is a short four verses- but long enough to let us know that baptism is about God loving us and claiming us. John the Baptist has been baptizing many from Jerusalem who want to change their ways—which probably describes many of us sitting here in January. Jesus, who apparently has been waiting his turn, asks John the Baptist to baptize him. John thinks Jesus should baptize him—but Jesus isn’t having it because there is something else going on. God has a point to make.
As Jesus comes up out of the water, the sky tears open, the Spirit of God comes down as a dove, settles on Christ and a voice says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” What has Jesus done at this point in the story? Not much. To be the beloved, the anointed one, the one who pleases God, Jesus has been born and shown up on this riverbank. It pleases God to love Him and love us through Him. Pastor Nadia Boltz-Weber says the sky breaks open because God’s love is too big for heaven to hold—it spills out onto us. [It is] a love that is yours quite apart from what you do or don’t do. The kind of love that breaks your heart and then makes it bigger. A love that creates belovedness in the one is rests upon.”
Today is a day for baptisms at Christ Church and I think sometimes we take this sacrament for granted. We think of it as a naming ceremony or a right of passage, but it is actually one of the most powerful things you will ever witness in your lifetime. Don’t be fooled by the simple water and smiling babies.- this is supernatural stuff happening here.
What do I need to know about baptism?
It is not something I do but something that is done to me by God. I do nothing but receive in this exchange. I go down into the water and something is washed off and something is put on. The temporary tattoo of self is washed off and Christ’s cross and seal of approval are put on. What did I do to earn this? Deserve this? Nothing. I was a baby, 4 months old. Baptism is a gift of grace—a claiming of one of its own by the House of God. God’s supernatural power through water binds us to Christ.
What does it mean to me as an adult? I am marked forever. The devil is not getting me because I belong to Christ. There is a seal on me that can only be seen spiritually and I can trust it. Like the marines, Christ will not leave me behind. I can’t do anything to remove it or deserve it. I am marked as Christ’s own forever.
What makes me beloved? In order to be loved, there has to be a lover and an object of that love. I am the object of the love and Christ is the lover. That’s what makes me be-loved. I don’t do anything but receive. I be loved.
I saw a movie last night that I highly recommend. It was called Lion and it is based on a true story from 1987. No spoilers but the story line seems very close to what we are talking about here with belovedness. A 5 year-old boy falls asleep on a train by himself and is carried 1000 miles away from home. Like most young boys, he doesn’t know his mother’s name or the name of his state, but feels the mark of love on his heart. He can’t forget. Others tell him that his mother didn’t look for him, didn’t care for him but he knows that he is fiercely and deeply loved and it haunts him. He knows there must be suffering knowing that he didn’t return.
He searches every corner of his mind for clues to lead him home. He knew he was loved not because he was good, but because he lived.
I think we are like this boy. We know down deep that we have been fiercely loved. We can’t forget and it haunts us. We are told by others that there is nothing there—there is no God to love us. “God loves you” is a fairy tale. But don’t believe it. You are loved like that—because you were given life by God.
Baptism is the moment when the outwardly simple element of water is infused with the supernatural love of Christ. In baptism, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Sealed and marked. Imagine if our eyes were so strong that we could see the Holy Spirit’s seal and Christ’s mark on us as we looked into the mirror to brush our teeth or comb our hair? We would see plainly that we are accepted and loved. But as 1 Corinthians tells us, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, then we will see face to face.”
Author Sarah Condon, in the new Mockingbird published book Churchy, tells us, “Jesus Christ speaks a word over us that says, ‘righteous, beloved and forgiven.’ We are made holy through his holiness, and we cannot let evil tell us otherwise. [She says she] cannot pray these words from Martin Luther enough:
‘So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: “I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also.’ ”
We all need to hear this on the radio station of our mind every moment of the day. “You don’t have to do anything to be loved. You have been marked and sealed forever.”
If you have never been baptized, now is the time to think about letting the heavens break open so you can hear, “You are the child who it pleases me to love.”
Amen
