Beloved

This week I read a list of things that children born this year 2011 will never know.  The list includes:  

1.       Fax machines

2.       Video Tape

3.       Travel Agents

4.       Books

5.       Magazines

6.       Newspapers

7.       Movie Rental Stores

8.       Watches

9.       Paper maps

10.   Wired Phones

11.   Wires

12.   The evening news

13.   Encyclopedia

14.   Dial up Internet

15.   CD’s

16.   Film Cameras

17.   Yellow Pages/White pages

18.   Handwritten Letters

19.   Cursive

20.   Mail

21.   Catalogues

22.   Silly arguments because things can be settled immediately with smart phones.

I’d like to add to that list a word from our Gospel reading today.  The word “Beloved”.

This is one of those “old” words that is rarely spoken today and only sometimes read.   This word will likely disappear from our language in the next decade or so.  Even the newer versions of the Bible are replacing “Beloved” with these phrases: 

Whom I love (New Century Version)

Marked by my love (The Message)

My own dear son (Contemporary English Version)

It’s interesting how words and things come and go in life. I wish the word “Beloved” would stay though.  It is much more powerful than just using the word “Loved” as is seen in Sunday’s Gospel lesson. God, the Father, says:

This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Three very powerful statements are made here.

First God says “This is my Son”. 

God’s claims Jesus as his son.  Jesus belongs to God.  <span>My</span> Son.  Belonging is one powerful, human need.  We see kids join gangs.  We see adults hanging out and drinking regularly in bars.  We see families eating dinner together around the dinner table.  We see people come to church on Sundays.  All places of  belonging.  Some good and some not so good.  The desire to belong is very strong in everyone.  Here God says to Jesus you belong to me as my son. 

Then God makes the statement – “My beloved.”  Another very basic human need is fulfilled here.  To be loved.  God claims Jesus as his and loves him dearly.  Beloved to me is stronger than loved.  It is very intimate and very real. 

Then God’s final statement  - “With whom I am well pleased.”  Not only does God claim Jesus as his own, but he loves him dearly, and now he says he even likes him.  What a wonderful thing to belong, to be loved, and to be liked. 

Everyone is looking for, hoping for, dreaming of a relationship like this.  Some have found it.  Some have not.  We all have it.  Often just don’t realize it.  When God claimed, loved and liked Jesus, he also did the same to us through Jesus.  God can look down upon us, sinners though we are, and say the same exact words.  Sometimes we just need to feel them in the form of another human being who brings those words to us.  A person’s whole life can change when that happens.  

We know that God names us as his child.  We belong to God.

We know that God loves us forever.  We are God’s beloved.

We know that God is well pleased with us because of Christ.  We are liked by God.

Our job now is to remind ourselves daily of that and to share that news with others.  Hear God saying these words personally to you.  Hear it often:

You are my child, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased. 

Hear it again:

You are my child, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.

Now repeat after me:

I am God’s child. 

God’s beloved

In whom God is well pleased.

Amen and Amen!

(Thanks to Pastor Marcus Felde and the Tuesday morning Pericope Group for the thoughts behind this message.)