In You I Take Delight
You are my beloved son.
with whom I am well pleased.
In the gospel of Luke, they are almost embarrassed
that Jesus was baptized by John
because why would Jesus need to be baptized?
He had no sin and this was a baptism of repentance.
But there is a difference with this baptism.
This is the baptism in which we are baptized and
all the children now will be baptized in a few minutes.
It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
In this baptism, the Lord says the same thing to us.
Each time that we are baptized, “With you, I am well pleased.”
There is another translation which is even better.
It says, “You are my beloved son in whom I delight.”
It is a lovely phrase “in whom I delight.”
That phrase of being delighted in
is different than at the end of Jesus' ministry
at the transfiguration.
They have the same experience,
as the voice comes from heaven says,
“This is my beloved Son, listen to him.”
There is a difference here.
This baptism with John is just for Jesus.
We are witnessing that God is saying
something deeply personal to Jesus,
that you are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased
and in whom I take great delight.
That is powerful.
I do not know if you can remember a time
back in your own childhood when your parents delighted in you.
It changes you once you realize that you are loved.
I remember many such occasions,
but one in particular, and
it was sort of a one of those awkward teenage moments.
I remember it was a New Year’s Eve night
and remember I have nine brothers, two sisters,
they were all gone out already.
I was the last one in the house
and I was planning to go out with my friends
that New Year’s Eve night.
My parents looked at me and said, “Oh, are you going out?”
“Yeah.” I said.
“Oh, we thought that you could ring in the New Year with us.”
I was like, “Yeah, great idea.”
Yeah, but I am a teenager so what do I do?
“No, I am going out to a party.”
Then I left, of course!
I go to the party and by the time I arrive at the party,
the Irish guilt is raining down on top of me
and I am just feeling it all the time.
I can not enjoy the party.
Eventually somewhere in the middle of the night,
it was like 10 o'clock, it was getting worse.
11 o'clock, I could not get over it.
It was overwhelming.
So I thought, okay, I am just heading home.
And I will always remember when I walked in the door.
It was 11 minutes to midnight,
and they had three glasses of champagne poured.
Somebody knew how guilt worked!
But those three glasses of champagne are not what I remember most.
I remember the smile on my parents' faces.
They were just delighted.
They were just delighted to see me.
And I mean, you can understand after having 12 children and
everybody now was gone now,
and it was nice to have the youngest there.
I realized in that moment that they loved me for just who I was.
It was not what I had done or who I was.
They delighted in me being there
and that was just a gift.
I always remember that smile,
that smile has transformed my life.
I will go back to that smile multiple times in my life.
Remembering the delight my parents had,
the love that my parents had.
Today’s gospel is trying to communicate
that sense of personal love and delight from the father to Jesus
to say that this is how much he loves the son.
But he also says that to every single one of us,
“You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.
You are my beloved child with whom I take great delight.”
Now, if we could just imagine the smile
that God has on his face when he says that,
it will transform our lives, it really will.
But you have to let it in first.
You have to believe that is what God is doing.
And here is the part, I was a teenager when that happened!
We could not imagine that when we are young,
but when we are a teenager, that is awkward.
But it is even more true as an adult
that we need to be able to imagine
God looking at us and saying,
“I take great delight with you.
I am well pleased with you. I
am delighted.”
Once we feel that, our lives are different,
and then we can do what the Lord has asked us to do.
To pass that love on to others because that is what we are called to.
It is not enough that we just feel it for ourselves,
but we cannot give to others what we have not felt ourselves.
So we need to allow that in for ourselves first,
to take in the delight that the Lord,
the God the Father has for us.
Then to be willing to pass it on to others
and to give that smile to somebody in our lives.
That will change our life also,
forever to smile on them and say,
“In you, I am well please, you are my beloved son or daughter.”
Now look, you can do it for your children
and many of you have grandchildren,
you can do it for your grandchildren.
But you also can do it for your spouse.
You can even do it for a close friend.
You can say, “I am delighted with you.
I am well pleased with you.”
We do not say it anywhere near enough
because I do believe that even as adults
we need to hear that message.
So maybe those of you who have adult children,
maybe you can call them and tell them,
“You are my beloved son or daughter.
And with you, I take great delight.”
When was the last time you told your children
that you were delighted in them?
Not for what they do,
not for what they have
or what they have accomplished,
but for who they are now,
a child of yours, a child of God.
In a few minutes, we are going to take these children,
we are going to lift them up and baptize them.
We are going to say to them “We are well delighted.”
I want you to hear God say that to you.
And I want you to take the mandate,
as we say, to witness to them the love of God for them.
I want you to take that mandate to witness
that love for others in your life.
Let’s get past the bashfulness of shame.
How much we love one another.
We need to hear it because we hear all the other messages,
all the other negative messages,
competitive ones on online,
how good everyone else is
and not how good we are.
Let’s combat it with a little message of love.
Let’s say to one another
“You are my beloved one,
with whom I am well pleased,
with whom I am delighted.”
You are my beloved son.
with whom I am well pleased.