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When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
- Luke 3:21-22
We already know from an earlier passage in Luke’s gospel that Jesus had a vocation to ‘be about his Father’s business’ of bringing to reality the new reign of God (2:49). Now, having made the life-altering movement of leaving all he knew to pursue that vocation further, is it any wonder we hear that Jesus was praying as he stood there in the river? Jesus, as he so often did, created the opportunity where peace and stillness could descend, the curtain of thought-based reality could be drawn back and he could listen for and hear the word which gave him the encouragement and strength he needed to begin his short public life.
As we make Jesus’ story our own, whether praying at decisive moments or during our everyday practice, we are invited to learn to see and hear in it the heavenly vision, to expect the peace-bringing energy of the Spirit, to hear the words of God’s amazing, affirming love as if addressed to us that they might change us, mould us, set us on the path of vocation that lies ahead for each of us.
Meditations
“In the Western world, fathers who think it in their hearts are often too tongue-tied or embarrassed to tell their children how much they love them, how delighted they are with them. Many, alas, go by the completely opposite route: angry voices, bitter rejection, the slamming of doors.
“The whole Christian Gospel could be summed up in this point: that when the living God looks at us …[God] says to us what [was] said to Jesus on that day. [God] sees us, not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Jesus Christ. It sometimes seems impossible, especially to people who have never had this kind of support from their earthly parents, but it’s true: God looks at us and says ‘You are my dear, dear child; I’m delighted with you.’
“After hearing these heavenly words, the road Jesus had to tread, precisely because he is God’s dear son, is the road that leads through the dry and dusty paths, through temptation and apparent failure. So it is for us as well. But if we remember the voice that spoke those powerful words of love we will find our way through. Jesus went the way that all his people must go; and he could because he had heard the words of love, the words of life.”
- Tom Wright, Mark for Everyone
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Beginning here we glimpse the Three-in-one;
The river runs, the clouds are torn apart,
The Father speaks, the Sprit and the Son
Reveal to us the single loving heart
That beats behind the being of all things
And calls and keeps and kindles us to light.
The dove descends, the spirit soars and sings
‘You are beloved, you are my delight!’
In that quick light and life, as water spills
And streams around the Man like quickening rain,
The voice that made the universe reveals
The God in Man who makes it new again.
He calls us too, to step into that river
To die and rise and live and love forever.
- Malcolm Guite, Epiphany on the Jordan
Practice
- “You are my Son/Daughter, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Try reading this sentence slowly, with your own name at the start, and reflect quietly on God saying this to you, both at your birth and every day since. Learn to hear these words addressed to yourself. Let them change you, mould you, make you somebody new; the person God loves.
- Post your reflections on the community forum here. Post prayer requests here. By clicking on the Subscribe link on the right-hand side of a thread, you can receive email notifications when someone posts a comment or a prayer request.
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