My Beloved Daughter

Sermon: Mk 1:4-11
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 1-8-12

We have chosen to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany today, because it is an important feast in the church year. It was actually Jan. 6, and today is technically the First Sunday after Epiphany. Epiphany signals the end of the Christmas Season. Hence, we will take down the Christmas decorations after service today.

Epiphany also signals the beginning of the next season called, of all things, the Epiphany season. That will take us to the beginning of Lent. During this season the focus is on epiphanies, or revelations, of who Jesus is. It is not about a single revelation, but a series of revelations, as we are brought to a fuller understanding of the mystery of the Christ. So, for instance, today’s Gospel tells the story of the Magi, those wise astronomers, who discerned from the stars that a great king had been born and followed his star to Judaea. So, we learn He is a King. The gospel for the first Sunday after Epiphany tells the story of His baptism at the Jordan. When He came up out of the water He saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him and a voice came from
Heaven, “You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” This in Mark’s account. In Matthew’s account it says “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” It would seem that the epiphany or revelation was intended for John the baptizer and the crowd who was there and, of course, for us. So now we know He not only is a king; he is also the Son of God. But the biggest thing for me is that, following Mark’s version, it was an epiphany for Jesus. He is being told He is God’s Son and that his Father is pleased with him.

Hard to understand? Didn’t He already know this? Apparently not. It is hard to understand, in fact it is impossible to understand the mystery of who Jesus is. The Christian doctrine from at least the fourth century is that he is both God and man, two natures, divine and human in one person. Truly God and truly man. In our efforts to understand this I think many times we come down on one side and not the other. One version is that He was always God and just pretended to be human. He went through the motions. He knew everything there was to know because he was God, so He knew He was God’s beloved Son. He didn’t have to learn it. Also, He didn’t really feel human emotions like love and anger. He didn’t really suffer as a human being would, but played the role. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that version believable based on reading the Gospels.

The other version is that he was only human and not divine. Okay, the greatest human who ever lived, but not God. God revealed special things to him and gave him the power to perform miracles, but He was only human. Sure he felt all our emotions and all our pain because He was human. At the end of his life he was taken into heaven and has the highest place next to God, but is not God, not one of the three persons in the Trinity.

Now either version is relatively easy to understand, but neither is the Christian teaching; both were condemned as heresies in the early church.

We are left with the mystery of the God-man. We cannot totally understand him, but we can identify with him, unite ourselves to Him. It is easier to do that by looking at His human experience, rather than His divinity. Since He was truly human I assume that means in His human mind he did not know everything. He had to grow in knowledge and wisdom before God and men, as we are told when he was lost in the temple at the age of 12. We know that he went frequently into solitude to pray to the father in order to know the father’s will for him. It must have been a great consolation and affirmation to hear the words at his baptism, “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”

What does this have to do with us? Don’t we all need and appreciate hearing words like that? “You are my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.” Many men have trouble saying those kind of words. My own father was like that. He was quite emotional but had trouble expressing himself. Many times he said to me, “You know how I feel.” And I did know.

Sometimes when men express deep emotion, it surprises people. I was reading about this priest who was preparing a sermon on this very text and got so inspired that he immediately text messaged both of his adult sons and said to each “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” One of the boys never acknowledged the message, but the other answered “Thanks, Dad. Are you okay?”

So, on this Epiphany day, it might be a good idea to tell our children how we feel about them. God did.