God’s pride and joy (Mark 1: 4-11)

Now that Colleen and I are parents, we have learned to take pride in our son’s accomplishments and praise him up for them whenever he does something correctly or good. They’re only little things right now, but to him, when he can go to the potty all by himself, or anything else without Mommy or Daddy’s help, these are major achievements. They deserve to be praised! And sometimes, if he’s extra good and acts nicely, he may (and I stress, “may”) get a reward from us, like a new book or a Hot Wheels car. It’s just our little way of saying, “Well done, Robert!”

We don’t wish to go overboard with rewards though and inadvertently spoil him so that he expects stuff, because down the road, he’ll start wanting bigger and better rewards and that won’t be good. I remember when I was in high school back in the early ‘80’s; a couple of my classmates, upon their graduation, actually received cars! That’s nice and quite generous of their parents, but honestly – how in the world are you supposed to top that?! Anything else you gave after that would tend to pale, wouldn’t it? Personally, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to afford to give such a luxury to Robert; not that we won’t want to, but in all likelihood we won’t be able to. But I also noticed something about those classmates of mine with their new cars: they didn’t truly appreciate them. They served mostly for show and public approval, which only made the cars little more than trinkets, and that’s sad.

I don’t wish to denigrate the motives of the parents who did that for their kids; undoubtedly, they only wanted to give them the best they could. But did a car do the trick, or did it inadvertently only make them status symbol-conscious? What then, is the right and proper manner for praising our children? They are our pride and joys; wouldn’t we want to do whatever we could for them?

Absolutely, and if we turn to today’s Markan Gospel passage, we see that even God was not immune to wanting to do something big for His Son, Jesus. The reading for today concerns the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. John the Baptist had been preaching around the Judean countryside about the immanent arrival of the Messiah for some time now, getting folks all excited. And then after Jesus had been baptized by John, Mark tells us that suddenly, the heavens themselves were torn apart. Such a thing had never happened before, and it awed everyone who’d crowded around the banks of the Jordan. It was like God was presenting Jesus with an amazing “graduation gift” (if you will), something no-one else could or would ever possibly top.

OK, we know that Jesus was God’s only Son, God’s true pride and joy, and that God was undeniably proud of Jesus for His wanting to publicly assume His rightful mantle of Messiah, but is it possible that having the heavens torn apart mightn’t be a tad OTT – “over the top”? Or would we be reading that incorrectly?

Yes, I think we would be. That would be us assigning our own human traits to God, and that would be wrong. Here’s what I mean: yes, it’s alright for us to start to see this beautiful show of love and support for Jesus’ ministry in that way, but we must be careful not to go too far and accidentally humanize God in the process, for in so doing, we might then be tempted to criticize Him as we might criticize another human being; not good! We are in God’s image, remember; He is not in ours. Sadly, humanity forgets that fact to our own detriment, far too often.

Returning to my former classmates being bought cars, and their not fully appreciating either them or the pride and generosity of their parents, I know some would be only too quick to criticize the parents and say, “Oh, they should’ve known better than to do something like that!” But it would be wrong of us to judge; what they did, they did out of love. The problem lay with the recipients. They’d been given so much, it overwhelmed them and they lost sight of the love and extravagant thoughtfulness behind the gift.

And y’know what? That’s the same sort of idea that sadly characterizes much of humanity when it comes to our receiving God’s many blessings in our daily lives. Just as with Jesus His Son, God pours out a multitude of wonders upon us on a daily – oh heck, on a minute-by-minute – basis, and we have grown greedy from them. We now want more, and feel we’re owed it. That’s one of humanity’s biggest problems. We have lost sight of the fact that God looks upon us as God’s pride and joy, just like Jesus. We have lost sight of the love behind the blessings, choosing instead to focus on the blessings themselves and on our demand for more.

That’s not what Jesus did. Even though it’s not specifically recorded in Mark’s Gospel, I’d theorize that Jesus was content in simply knowing that God was proud of Him for His having stepped up to the proverbial plate and beginning His ministry, a choice that would ultimately prove fatal for Jesus, but which would mean salvation for the rest of humanity, for all time. Jesus knew this, and I’d guess that His seeing God’s power on display was all the evidence He needed to know He was doing the right thing.

But it wasn’t simply watching the heavens being torn asunder that confirmed for Jesus that this was the correct life pathway; it was also in the words He heard God say to Him, words that no-one else around the Jordan would hear – “You are my Son, and in you I am well-pleased.” That’s the difference between Mark and the other two Gospel writers – Matthew and Luke – who recorded the baptism of Jesus: only Mark says that Jesus heard God’s voice with all God’s love, pride and encouragement. In that way, only Mark’s Gospel reveals the intensity and depth of how much love God had for His Son.

Reading it like that, with that knowledge, we suddenly become privy to understanding just what a monumental occasion this was in Jesus’ life. He always knew He was God’s Son, but this… this strengthened His resolve to go forward in His ministry like never before. This was all the assurance needed for Jesus to bring God’s Word of grace and salvation to a world sorely in need of both. With this show of power and might from God and those words of support, Jesus was able to go out into the world with His own bold, daring and tender love.

You see? For Jesus, the start of His ministry didn’t rely on a display of God’s power; instead, it was based upon just a few simple words of encouragement. That, I believe, is what we are called to bestow upon our children: not fancy gizmos or gadgets, but heartfelt words of love, letting them know how much they mean to us and how much we care.

But we should not stop there, oh no! Because ultimately, this sermon isn’t about how to raise and praise our children; it is about how we raise up and strengthen with praise our friends, neighbours and everyone else in the world we happen to meet. You know as well as I do, there are far too many people in our secular society who are wandering around, lost and seeking a solid base of support that can only come from faith. They need spiritual guidance, and it’s our holy mission from God to be the ones who are willing to provide that guidance.

You may say, “But I don’t know how to do that! How does God expect me to do something that important for people I don’t even know?!” And the answer to that type of cry is found in Mark’s Gospel: just as God told Jesus that day in the Jordan, that He was proud of Him and the work He was undertaking, so too can we be assured that God will strengthen and support us as we go out to do God’s work. After all, we are God’s pride and joys, God’s beloved children, right? We must learn to listen for His voice in our own hearts and lives and we will find all the strength we would ever need to do His work. This is our blessed assurance of God’s extravagant love for us. So thank you, God. Amen.