Please Show Your I.D.

January 10th, 2010

 Excerpt from the Gospel, Luke 3: 21-22

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

Excerpt from the second reading, Titus 3: 4-7

But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Here’s a good question to start the New Year:

Who are you?

Can you answer this question without referring to any other person in your life or to any of your life circumstances? Can you say who you are without alluding to your spouse, your children, your job, your role(s) in the church or community or any of your gifts, skills, achievements or failures?

Tough question, huh? Yet, it is the single most important question in the spiritual life and the one question most people have huge difficulty answering. We learn to measure and identify ourselves according to the expectations of the world, our families, the church community, our employers and our peers. We learn to judge ourselves according to how well we live up to or fail to live up to all these subtle but strong expectations and most people spend their lives grappling constantly with the expectations of others, resenting them, fearing them and feeling trapped or condemned by them. Every woman I speak with is struggling with who she really is, whether she knows that’s the essential question or not. Every woman yearns for the answer.

You will have noticed that the two excerpts I chose from the readings this week have to do with baptism – Jesus’ and ours.  In order to begin to grasp the answer to the question of who you really are, it is important to understand that your baptism and Jesus’ baptism are deeply connected. No … 'connected' is the wrong word. It’s more like your baptism is completely enfolded in the power of Christ’s baptism the way a baby is enfolded in the womb of the mother. All the power inherent in your baptism is drawn from the heaven and earth-shaking instant when Jesus went down into the waters and then burst forth out of them, anointed to begin the working out of all he was called to. In this moment, he heard something the rest of us long and ache to hear. He heard the Father speak his Name: “You are ‘My Son, the Beloved’.”

The Father wasn’t just saying something nice and caring to Jesus nor was he particularly concerned that others hear the Naming and understand it. This was something crucial between Jesus and His Father; it was the foundational basis of EVERYTHING Jesus said and did from that moment on. After his baptism, Jesus went into the desert where there were no people, no family, no jobs, no vocations and no roles to play – in other words, none of the things we all normally depend on to define us – and when Satan turned up to tempt Jesus, Satan got nowhere because Jesus knew who he was. He was God’s Beloved. He didn’t need anything else to build up his inner sense of himself; he didn’t need the approval, acceptance or admiration of other people and he especially did not need Satan’s offerings of power and status. In knowing he was the Father’s Beloved, he had everything he needed. He lacked nothing and he knew it.

So, what does all this have to do with us and our own baptisms? You might say, “Of course the Father called Jesus his Beloved Son because Jesus was truly his only begotten son, but how does that define me? How does that tell me who I really am?”

 Does the following sound familiar?

Father, God of mercy, through these waters of baptism you have filled us with new life as your very own children.

_(Name)_, you have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ.  See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity.

Dearly beloved, this child has been reborn in baptism. He (she) is now called the child of God, for so indeed he (she) is.

That’s from the Catholic Rite of Baptism. From the waters of baptism you rose up in Christ, clothed in him – completely enfolded in him. When you were baptized, you rose up dignified and beautiful. When you were baptized God, the father, looked on you and beheld the spitting image of his firstborn son, Jesus. When you were baptized, God the Father looked at you and said, “You are my Daughter, the Beloved.”

Yeah…but that was then. What about now? You’re not an innocent little baby anymore. You’ve muddied your boots quite a bit since you were baptized, right? That little bundle of brand new creation, all washed and lovely, has become a bit moth eaten around the edges with lots of big and little pockmarks of sin and failure and inadequacy. Right? God doesn’t love sin and sometimes you feel like just one big bundle of sin. Right?

My two grandsons, cousins, came to visit this Christmas. Their ages are 2 and 21 months. Lovely kids. Excellent kids, actually, but just like anyone else, adults included, they can be at the mercy of over tiredness, over stimulation, frustration over their own inability to accomplish what they want to accomplish and huge disappointment when their desires don’t quite mesh with parental desires. During the visit, the poor parents were often sleep deprived and worn out while dealing with their toddlers’ occasional short tempers, inappropriate behavior, mistakes in judgment or minor meltdowns but never once did I witness anything in those parents that indicated that they did not love their child completely and unconditionally. In fact, many times I saw a love exchange between parent and child that was sheer joy on both their parts – often within seconds of the child having been acting in a way that was unacceptable to the parent. The child would turn to the parent needing comfort or, forgetting the conflict that had just occurred, would simply offer the parent a wonderful smile or a piece of his half chewed apple or just ask the parent to play along at “Where can James be?  Where can Jude be? ...There you are!!” They were never denied the right to participate gleefully in their parents’ love. Ever. Nor did any of those parents define their child by the child’s lapses into inappropriate behavior.

Not once did a parent refuse to engage in a loving exchange with the child even if the child had just been creating havoc in their lives. Both of the boys live their lives full of total confidence that they are beloved children and both of them know that their parents are actually waiting for those moments of loving relationship.

Why would God, our Father, be any different? “If you then, imperfect as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11)  The Father is waiting every moment of the day to have you turn to him to see his love and delight and to hear him say, “You are my Beloved Daughter.”

Once you hear that and once you finally believe it so that you laugh with joy because of it, you will be on the path to knowing exactly who you are. You will begin to know that God is your definition. When you see the delight and love in his eyes, it will be the only definition you will need or want. He is where you will find all your value, worth and identity.

Did you know that the word ‘identity’ comes from the same root as ‘identical’?  The reason you will never really find your identity in people, things and roles in this world is because nothing in this world can ever completely fit the real you. Everything we normally seek approval from is just a poor fitting shadow of the real thing. Through baptism, you were given the only garment that will ever fit you perfectly; you were clothed in Christ and made identical to Jesus. He is your identity and your Name. He is the reason the Father beholds you and cries out, “I love you SO MUCH.”

It’s good year to find out who you are.