The Beloved
The Beloved
Rev Carolyn Waters
Mark 1:9-15 Lent I
March 5, 2006, CCUM
Author Mark McMinn in his book, Finding Our Way Back Home: Turning Back to What Matters Most, says “Remembering is a spiritual endeavor. In remembering we create space for God to meet us on our journey, and we allow our lives to be centered in the security of God’s love.” Remembering is a theme in Scripture, especially throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament. There, we are constantly reminded to remember the faithfulness of God, which is almost always in contrast to the forgetfulness of God’s people. I believe it is the spiritual endeavor of remembering that we are about when we observe the season of Lent. It is a time when we remember who we are and whose we are. So even more so than during the rest of the year, during Lent we focus on remembering who Jesus was. This morning’s Gospel lesson from Mark is a good place to begin.
In today’s lesson we learn some very important things about Jesus. He was baptized, and at his baptism God proclaimed, “You are my beloved”, and then Jesus immediately went into the wilderness where he was confronted by evil and wild beasts, and where angels waited on him.
What we get from these verses may be a mixture of awe and disbelief! We have difficulty relating to the life Jesus lived because it’s focus was so very different from anything we know. Trying to figure out exactly what it means to be a “follower of Jesus Christ” can be a bit confusing if comparing our life to his. What does it mean to follow him if we can never believe we can live as he lived? It can get even more confusing for us when we read in the Gospel of John that Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and, in fact, will do greater works than these….” Can any of us, even begin to say, “We can do greater works than Jesus?” Actually if anyone claimed to be able to do so, we’d turn the other way! What was Jesus saying about who he was and who we could be as his followers? I think the key is that who Jesus was and what his life was all about had to do with his relationship with God, who he knew himself to be in God’s love.
According to Mark, when Jesus was baptized to begin his ministry, he heard God saying he was God’s beloved son. He was loved and blessed by God and it was only after that pronouncement, that affirmation that he began to live out his calling. In remembering this moment in Jesus’ life, can we connect that to our life and who we are?
Henri Nouwen, priest and prolific writer on the subject of spirituality said this about our connection to this moment in the life of Jesus. “….the spiritual life is a life in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says, ‘You are beloved and on you my favor rests.’” (Or as in today’s translation, “with you I am well pleased.”) “That is where the spiritual life starts, claiming the voice that calls us the beloved.”
Can we even go there? Can we really comprehend God’s love for us in such a personal way? Henri Nouwen was so convinced of our need to understand this passage of scripture as the foundation for our spiritual life that he wrote a book entitled, “The Life of the Beloved.” In this book he describes what he learned about being loved by God from living in a community with persons with profound physical and mental disabilities, persons who often feel unlovable. He tells the story of a severely handicapped woman named Janet who came up to Henri at worship service one day and said, “Henri, can you bless me?” He then made the sign of the cross on her forehead. And she said to him, “Henri it doesn’t work. No, that is not what I mean.” Henri was embarrassed and said, “I gave you a blessing.” And she said,“No, I want to be blessed.” He could not understand what she meant. He turned to all of the other people at the service and said, “Janet wants a blessing.” He had on a long robe with long sleeves and all the liturgical vestments that would make him viable as someone who could bless someone but he did not know what to do. At that point she again said, “I want to be blessed”, and put her head against his chest. He said he spontaneously put his arms around her, held her, looked into her eyes and said, “Blessed are you, Janet. You know how much we love you. You know how important you are. You know what a good woman you are.” She looked at Henri and said, “Yes, yes, yes, I know.” Henri said he could see all sorts of energy coming back to her. She seemed to be relieved. She realized again that she was blessed. She was loved. And she immediately went back to her place. Then other people began to say, “I want that kind of blessing too.” Henri said, “All these people came to me and I found myself embracing people….and then one of the people in the community who was a staff worker who assisted the handicapped came up to him and said, “Henri can I have a blessing too”? And Henri recalled the powerful moment of looking into the eyes of this big guy, a football player who was not handicapped in the same ways as the others, but how much he still needed the assurance of being blessed, being loved. So Henri put his hand on John’s shoulder and said, “John, you are blessed. You are a good person. God loves you. We love you. You are important.”
Nouwen asks, “Can you claim that and live as the blessed one?” We need that connection, that assurance, that like Jesus, we are known, we are loved, we are chosen, we are blessed by God. That is the beginning point for all that follows in our life and in our discipleship.
As we journey through Lent together, remembering the life and teachings of Jesus, I would like to challenge you to contemplate what it might mean to connect with your faith and the author of that faith from your heart and not just your head. I really believe if we remember Jesus and try to understand who he was and is only from an intellectual perspective, we will never have the courage, the heart, to live as he lived.
But, when we begin to understand what moved him, how he responded to being a beloved child of God and how his courage, his heart could withstand any danger that could come to him in the wilderness, we too can live being beloved by God, knowing we can withstand even times of wilderness.
The ancient poet Basho once said, “I do not seek to follow in the footsteps of those of old. I seek the things they sought.” I do not think as followers of Jesus we are asked to follow him in his footsteps and to live his life. I do believe we are asked to seek to know his heart, and to remember that like he, we too are the beloved children of God.
Rev Carolyn Waters
Mark 1:9-15 Lent I
March 5, 2006, CCUM
Author Mark McMinn in his book, Finding Our Way Back Home: Turning Back to What Matters Most, says “Remembering is a spiritual endeavor. In remembering we create space for God to meet us on our journey, and we allow our lives to be centered in the security of God’s love.” Remembering is a theme in Scripture, especially throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament. There, we are constantly reminded to remember the faithfulness of God, which is almost always in contrast to the forgetfulness of God’s people. I believe it is the spiritual endeavor of remembering that we are about when we observe the season of Lent. It is a time when we remember who we are and whose we are. So even more so than during the rest of the year, during Lent we focus on remembering who Jesus was. This morning’s Gospel lesson from Mark is a good place to begin.
In today’s lesson we learn some very important things about Jesus. He was baptized, and at his baptism God proclaimed, “You are my beloved”, and then Jesus immediately went into the wilderness where he was confronted by evil and wild beasts, and where angels waited on him.
What we get from these verses may be a mixture of awe and disbelief! We have difficulty relating to the life Jesus lived because it’s focus was so very different from anything we know. Trying to figure out exactly what it means to be a “follower of Jesus Christ” can be a bit confusing if comparing our life to his. What does it mean to follow him if we can never believe we can live as he lived? It can get even more confusing for us when we read in the Gospel of John that Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and, in fact, will do greater works than these….” Can any of us, even begin to say, “We can do greater works than Jesus?” Actually if anyone claimed to be able to do so, we’d turn the other way! What was Jesus saying about who he was and who we could be as his followers? I think the key is that who Jesus was and what his life was all about had to do with his relationship with God, who he knew himself to be in God’s love.
According to Mark, when Jesus was baptized to begin his ministry, he heard God saying he was God’s beloved son. He was loved and blessed by God and it was only after that pronouncement, that affirmation that he began to live out his calling. In remembering this moment in Jesus’ life, can we connect that to our life and who we are?
Henri Nouwen, priest and prolific writer on the subject of spirituality said this about our connection to this moment in the life of Jesus. “….the spiritual life is a life in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says, ‘You are beloved and on you my favor rests.’” (Or as in today’s translation, “with you I am well pleased.”) “That is where the spiritual life starts, claiming the voice that calls us the beloved.”
Can we even go there? Can we really comprehend God’s love for us in such a personal way? Henri Nouwen was so convinced of our need to understand this passage of scripture as the foundation for our spiritual life that he wrote a book entitled, “The Life of the Beloved.” In this book he describes what he learned about being loved by God from living in a community with persons with profound physical and mental disabilities, persons who often feel unlovable. He tells the story of a severely handicapped woman named Janet who came up to Henri at worship service one day and said, “Henri, can you bless me?” He then made the sign of the cross on her forehead. And she said to him, “Henri it doesn’t work. No, that is not what I mean.” Henri was embarrassed and said, “I gave you a blessing.” And she said,“No, I want to be blessed.” He could not understand what she meant. He turned to all of the other people at the service and said, “Janet wants a blessing.” He had on a long robe with long sleeves and all the liturgical vestments that would make him viable as someone who could bless someone but he did not know what to do. At that point she again said, “I want to be blessed”, and put her head against his chest. He said he spontaneously put his arms around her, held her, looked into her eyes and said, “Blessed are you, Janet. You know how much we love you. You know how important you are. You know what a good woman you are.” She looked at Henri and said, “Yes, yes, yes, I know.” Henri said he could see all sorts of energy coming back to her. She seemed to be relieved. She realized again that she was blessed. She was loved. And she immediately went back to her place. Then other people began to say, “I want that kind of blessing too.” Henri said, “All these people came to me and I found myself embracing people….and then one of the people in the community who was a staff worker who assisted the handicapped came up to him and said, “Henri can I have a blessing too”? And Henri recalled the powerful moment of looking into the eyes of this big guy, a football player who was not handicapped in the same ways as the others, but how much he still needed the assurance of being blessed, being loved. So Henri put his hand on John’s shoulder and said, “John, you are blessed. You are a good person. God loves you. We love you. You are important.”
Nouwen asks, “Can you claim that and live as the blessed one?” We need that connection, that assurance, that like Jesus, we are known, we are loved, we are chosen, we are blessed by God. That is the beginning point for all that follows in our life and in our discipleship.
As we journey through Lent together, remembering the life and teachings of Jesus, I would like to challenge you to contemplate what it might mean to connect with your faith and the author of that faith from your heart and not just your head. I really believe if we remember Jesus and try to understand who he was and is only from an intellectual perspective, we will never have the courage, the heart, to live as he lived.
But, when we begin to understand what moved him, how he responded to being a beloved child of God and how his courage, his heart could withstand any danger that could come to him in the wilderness, we too can live being beloved by God, knowing we can withstand even times of wilderness.
The ancient poet Basho once said, “I do not seek to follow in the footsteps of those of old. I seek the things they sought.” I do not think as followers of Jesus we are asked to follow him in his footsteps and to live his life. I do believe we are asked to seek to know his heart, and to remember that like he, we too are the beloved children of God.
posted by Rev Waters | 6:41 AM
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