Talk by Peter Walley

“You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter; with you I am well pleased.”

It is said that a famous movie-maker had a huge legal wrangle with his long time mentor and guide. The younger man simply couldn’t handle criticism and ended up rejecting the person who had helped him so much. When the court case was over a close friend summed up the real problem. ‘It was all about an ungenerous father’, he explained, ‘and a son looking for affirmation and love.’

What was your family like to grow up in? For me, Dad was a distant figure most of the time. I realise that it must have been a shock for my parents when I was born as my Father was 50 and my mother was 42 (I have a sister 21 years older than me) – but when I look back at my childhood despite having a brother 5 years older than me the reality was that it was quite lonely at times, I was expected to play on my own and I was expected to grow up more quickly than many others my own age.

Dad for me was not an expressive man. From what others in the family tell me, my Father, as the middle child in a family of 5 had quite strict parents and I don’t think he got much attention. So maybe he didn’t know how to say that he loved me, to my face. Of course I’m not alone, many children grow up in our world who have never had a father say to them (either in words, in looks, or in hugs), ‘I love you, I’m pleased with you’.

It may be truer in our culture, which can often be quite inhibited that even those Fathers who think this in their hearts are often too tongue tied or embarrassed to tell us their children how delighted they are in them – not for what they have achieved but simply for being who they are. So that when discipline and correction are required, too often there can be heard the slamming of doors, angry voices and harsh criticism.

Did Jesus ever have any issues with knowing who his real Father was? A veil is drawn by the gospels over Jesus’ early life, we have but glimpses such as his going to the Temple with his parents, staying behind and telling his bewildered and upset parents when they eventually came back and found him, that ‘he had to be in his Father’s house’.

Scholars believe that Jesus was around 30 years old when he came into preaching/teaching ministry and this incident, when Jesus is baptized marks the beginning. And what a beginning! Jesus comes to his 1^st cousin and asks to be baptized. John recognises that Jesus is the Messiah and in Matthew 3 recognising his own sinfulness retorts, ‘I should be baptized by you and do you come to me?’ Jesus answers ‘Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness’ then John consented.

When Jesus comes out of the water heaven opens, the Spirit comes down upon Jesus and a voice out of the heavens speaks:

“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

What an affirmation for Jesus – especially because in Chapter 4 Luke records that the Spirit leads Jesus out into the desert to be tempted by the Satan.

The whole of the Christian gospel could be summed up in this phrase: that when the living God, our heavenly Father, looks at us, at every baptised and believing Christian, he says to us what he said to Jesus on that day. For he sees us as we are in Jesus Christ. It really is true: God looks at you and me and says: ‘You are my dear child; you are my beloved and I’m delighted in you.’

We know it is true for one simple and profound reason: when we come to Christ and are baptised the Holy Spirit comes on us. Our sins are forgiven, we are made right before God, and we become a part of God’s family.

When God looks on us, in the words of many of the hymns in the Pentecostal tradition, he sees the shed blood of Jesus, not all the things we have done wrong. And just in case we are thinking secretly ‘but you don’t know what I’ve done!’: there is no sin that cannot be forgiven – except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

We are truly set free – Jesus put it this way in John 8:34 – 36

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. ³⁵ Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

These words are so powerful – because maybe you or I are still under the impression that God can’t love me – he loves other people but not me – and when we come to pray – maybe all we hear in our heads is an angry response, doors being slammed, not open arms, loving hugs and affirming acceptance.

One of the things Luke is saying to us, in the way he’s written his gospel, is that when we look at the whole life of Jesus we are gaining glimpses of that different dimension in terms of Jesus’ healings, his lived out love and grace. So, let’s learn to hear these words addressed to ourselves, let his words of affirmation change us, mould us, make us somebody new, setting us free and making us into the people God wants us to be.

Every blessing. Peter