At Mass this past Sunday, we made our annual pilgrimage to the River Jordan.
By that, I mean we marked the end of the Christmas season and celebrated the Baptism of the Lord. I’ve written before why I believe this feast day to be so important — you can read last year’s reflection here.
But in short, the story of the Baptism of the Lord is a perfect opportunity to engage in Ignatian contemplation, to sink into a scene so vivid with potential sensory details: the coolness of the water, the nervous chatter of the crowd, the overwhelming presence of God’s great delight. What do we hear? Smell? Taste? We are invited to place ourselves alongside Christ and companion him as he experiences — in an intimate and immediate way — God’s great love.
Most important of all, we hear God’s Spirit declare to us that we are God’s beloved, too. By putting ourselves in that scene, Jesus invites us to hear what he hears, to know in our hearts the truth of what he knows in his own heart: With us, God is very pleased.
God’s delight in us, God’s declaration that we are God’s own beloved, is a message we should never grow tired of hearing, of reflecting upon, of sharing with others. It was true last year when we stood at the bank of the River Jordan; it’s true this year, too.
And yet, so much has happened between these moments on the river’s edge — so much in our personal lives, so much in the life of our world. We approach the water differently this year, changed somehow. Perhaps wearied by the events of our day, frightened, sad and angry. No matter how we come to the river, no matter what we carry, God’s message is the same: You are beloved.
But because we approach these readings anew every year, because God’s Spirit is always speaking to us, my own prayer was tugged in a new direction at Mass. I found myself drawn to the words of the First Reading, to Isaiah, to Scripture that Jesus would have undoubtedly had in the back of his own mind as he himself descended to the rushing river.
God delights in us; God calls us beloved; God speaks directly to us and insists that, with us, God is well pleased. But God also says this to us, to you and me in all our concrete specificity:
I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness. (Is 42:6-7)
As we place ourselves in the scene, as we stumble into the cold, wet water alongside Christ, let us, too, allow these words from the prophet to rattle around in our ears. God speaks them to us just as poignantly as those words of belovedness; God calls each of us to the work of justice. We are beckoned by the Spirit to right relationships, to forgive, to give to each what they require for a life that is full and flourishing, to share and to show compassion.
And so, as you meditate upon God’s constant delight in you this week, remember that God delights also in each and every other person on this planet. And because of that delight, because of God’s insistent and persistent love, we are each called to act justly, to reverence one another and to safeguard life in all its many and wondrous forms.
How is God inviting you and me to be a light for others, for all people? Whose eyes are we challenged to open — and to what have we become blind? Who might we accompany on the arduous path from darkness to new life, from the dungeons of fear and despair to the halls of wisdom and mercy? What holds us prisoner? What do we need to let go of so as to embrace God’s gift of freedom?
The message of Christ’s baptism is that God delights in us. But the message does not end there. For Jesus, it was just the beginning; from there, he set out on a mission of radical inclusivity, of mercy and reconciliation and of determined, unflappable love.
Where does the river lead us this year? How does God’s delight fortify us for what is necessarily to come?