You Are LovedBy Rev. Jamie Green KlopotoskiBased on Matthew 3:17-21January 9, 2022First Baptist Church, Gloucester MAWatch here:
It is REALLY hot in Israel. A few weeks ago, I told you a story from the time I spent in Jerusalem and Bethlehem with a tour group about a decade ago. Today, I’m going to tell you about our time at the Jordan River. I know it is pretty cold outside right now, but try to imagine being in the hot desert. It was my fourth day in Israel. We spent every one of those four days underneath the desert sun. And every time we got back on our air conditioned bus it felt like Heaven. On the morning of the fourth day, we drove to a baptismal site on the Jordan River. This is where tourists come to be baptized, or to reaffirm their baptism, in the river where Jesus was baptized. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a sign dedicating the site, saying that we were not far from the place on the river where Jesus was baptized. Our tour guide informed us that “not far” meant 120 miles away. We can’t actually visit the exact site where Jesus was baptized, because that part of the river is now in Jordan's territory and is not very safe to visit.
We climbed out of our nicely cooled buses and back into the hot sun. We stood in line to pay 24 shekels (about 6 dollars) to rent a white tunic and towel and then headed off to the dressing rooms to put on our bathing suits and these white tunics. Then all of us, gowned in white, gathered near the edge of the River. We lined up at a set of stone steps that led to a shallow section of the river (just 4 ft deep), and we waited. And we waited. The sun beat down overhead. The water reflected the sun’s glory. It was SO hot. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead, as each person in white walked into the water to be baptized. I stepped into a very shallow part of the water to try to cool off my feet, but I was attacked by tons of little fish. The Jordan River is supposed to be “living water”, so Israelis dump these fish into the river to literally make it living water… but they bite!! I continued standing in line, squinting in the sunlight to see the other people on my bus get baptized, until finally it was my turn.
I slowly stepped into the river until I was about waist deep. The water was clear and beautiful. I waded over to a man, a pastor, who took my hand, and asked my name. He then said, Jamie, I baptize you in the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. And then I plugged my nose, and he dipped me back into the water until I was submerged. The water felt glorious and absolutely amazing after being in the sun for what seemed like forever. I felt refreshed and alive, and ready to go about my day. That water felt so GOOD. I remember thinking, no wonder baptisms are so holy! If I spent every waking hour of my day in the hot desert sun without air conditioning, I’d be baptized in the water all the time! Seriously though, it was an absolutely wonderful experience, because in addition to being immersed in the gloriously cool water, I felt immersed by the love of God.
I was reminded of this powerful experience at the Jordan River while reading today’s scripture lesson, especially the line after Jesus emerges from the Jordan River at his very own baptism, and a voice from heaven is heard saying, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. He is my chosen one, in whom my soul delights.”
This voice from Heaven is not just meant to be about Jesus. It’s about you and me too. God looks down at you and me and says, “This is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter in whom my soul delights.” This is how God feels about you and me, whether we are eight days old, eight months, eight years or eighty-eight years old, no matter what we have or haven’t done, no matter what we do or don’t believe.… No matter what, God’s fundamental attitude towards us is this: delight. God delights in us. It makes me shiver just thinking about it. God looks upon us with delight. God loves us. God loves us even though we don’t always get it right. God loves us in spite of our failures and mistakes and doubts. Baptism affirms this love that God has for us, the love has been there all along and will always be with us.
If you’ve seen Disney’s animated movie “The Lion King”, you may remember this scene where Simba, the young lion, runs away after his father, King Mufasa, dies. Simba is running away from his past, thinking he is responsible for his father’s death, and also away from his future as the next Lion King. At some point Simba looks into a deep pool of water and sees his own reflection. But when he looks again, Simba’s reflection becomes that of his father. His father’s image then appears to Simba in the sky, and we hear the unmistakable voice of James Earl Jones saying; ‘Remember who you are!”
Celtic scholar Philip Newell writes: “The gospel is given not to tell us that we have failed, but to make known to us what we have forgotten, and that is who we are.” We are created in God’s image, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”, we are loved. It would do us good to remember who we are, or rather, whose we are. We are God’s beloved. Baptism helps us remember whose we are, that we belong to the family of God, that we are beloved children of God. That we are loved no matter what.
A friend of mine, Alex Cook, is a chaplain, musician, and artist from the Boston area, and one of my favorite projects of his is called the “You Are Loved Mural Project”. It started when he was commissioned to paint a mural in a school in New Orleans with the mission to help the students feel safe. He started with just painting some nice warm-feeling colors. But he decided he didn’t have to subtle about it wanting kids to feel safe. So we painted the words: “You are loved. You are important. You are special. You are needed. You are a thinker. You can do it.” In this first mural, the letters were just a few inches tall, but in subsequent murals, the letters got taller and taller, some are 12 feet tall covering entire walls. He works with schools, businesses, worship groups, prisons, and organizations of all types; he sketches the design on a wall like a paint by number, and then invites community members, students, and families to come together and paint the mural. Since 1997, he has created over 180 murals all over the US and abroad, with the message “You are Loved.” He says this about the project: “At some point, everybody suffers from wondering if they are loved, if they are valuable, if they are worth anything. To not feel valuable can lead you in terrible directions in life. [The message that you are loved] is a message we all need to know. It can be an absolutely saving message. It might be the most central message I can think of. “You are loved” reaches to the darkest places. This message comes directly from God. This is a message that is true about everyone. If I believe it about me, and I know that I’ve done bad things in my life, it’s gotta be true about other people who have also done bad things.” He spreads the message of “You are loved” in order to make a more compassionate universe. His project has received some amazing response, including the testimony of one young man who was on the path to suicide when he came across a You Are Loved painting and decided not to kill himself. The message of “You are Loved” has literally saved lives. Sometimes that’s all we need to hear… you…are…loved.
God loves us. Once we grasp the fact that we are beautiful and loved, cherished and valued as God’s dearly beloved child, made in God’s very image, once we internalize that love, and become energized and transformed by that love, only then will we be able to reach out to others and share that love. Imagine the world we get if people think they are ugly, immoral failures, unloved and unlovable. But imagine the world we help to create if people believe they are beautiful, good, lovable and loved, without having to be perfect, without having to always get it right. My prayer for all of us is to know this, that:
You are needed.
You are important.
You are beautiful.
You are amazing
You are loved.
Amen.
Sources:
http://www.youarelovedmurals.com/
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