What was it like for Jesus to be baptized? What was it like to feel the cool water close over his head and return back into the sunshine?  What feelings moved through his body as he heard the words “This is my beloved Son” spoken over him.  It is hard to imagine that a human heart, immersed in water, surrounded by kin, named beloved, felt nothing at all. 

In a time when the Christian faith is often disembodied, brittle, and attached to inhuman and hostile messaging, I don’t want to make Jesus less divine.  I long for Jesus to be allowed to be more fully, achingly, beautifully human. 

The early Church wrestled with Jesus’ humanity and divinity. Confronted by docetism, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD affirmed Jesus’ humanity alongside his divinity –  one person, two natures, unmixed, undivided, and unseparated.  

Jesus was human. He didn’t just touch water, he was cooled by it. He didn’t just hear the words “You are my beloved”, he received these words in his nervous system.  What if we stopped,  looked, and listened for how Jesus might have experienced his baptism? 

 What if he walked out of the house of his father and mother, drawn by a calling that felt like coming home? What if this moment became his north star which he returned to when he was hungry, rejected, beaten, mocked, crucified.  I am lost. I am loved. 

Jesus found his way to John by listening within himself. When something shifted, he recognized it. He sensed the desire to immerse  himself in the waters of baptism and give himself over to the strange call forming within him, and he got up and went out into the wilderness. 

I sense this will be a formative year.  What will we be drawn towards? We can be drawn by many things – fear, scarcity, courage, love, generosity, hatred, revelation.  The revelation of Divine Love is continual and unfolding, experienced as much in our bodies as it is digested with our minds. In this season of epiphany, may we honor the manifestation of God. May we honor the strange gladness that calls us out into the wild. 

Deep peace and blessing,

Anne

Rev. Anne Baxter Smith

Pastor, Southpoint Church