For Sunday, January 10, 2016 – Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Imagine with me, if you will, a world in which vast numbers of people are hearing and beginning to integrate at heart and soul level that we, the same as Jesus, are God’s beloved. That we, too, are intended to hear the blessing Jesus heard at his baptism; that God bends over each of us and whispers, “With you, even in your current state of unfinished glory, with you I am well pleased.” Even a small taste of such awareness can create a sudden craving for more. Sense how the channels of reception immediately grow more clear and unhindered as we begin to ponder the possibility. Listen as the interrupting vibrations of anxiety, fear and regret fade away. Notice how quickly we want to give the gift to others.
When Jesus calls us into deepening relationship, a total immersion into his ways of seeing and being, does he not call us into total acceptance and love of all that is God’s, including ourselves? If you, if I, do not hear and respond to God’s voice of love, that singular voice intended uniquely for each of us, how will we ever come into our own, fulfilling our potential as channels of acceptance and love for others? Is this not what it means to be born into the family of God, not only to love God, not only to serve God’s good pleasure, but to receive the awareness of being God’s pleasure?
Imagine it: there is a God of all creation who wants to love us, who wants us to love ourselves by caring for one another. It is a simple path, but many of us prefer complication. We seek validation by striving after rigorous standards of perfection, or by positioning ourselves to defend against and obliterate all perceived threats to our well-being. We have not yet let ourselves go down into the boundless depths of God’s love for us. To more fully fathom our belovedness would mean to trust the hands that hold us, to lean back and discover our roots in a source of wellness beyond our own. So much pleasure awaits—as we make generous responses to greed, speak loving words to hate, generate peace. How relaxed and confident we can be as the stress and strain of life wash away.
