17.06 | Water & Wilderness
Luke 3:21-4:15
‘…and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”’
Luke 3:22
If and then.
Two words that many of us spend much time living between.
If I was more skilled, then I would feel more confident.
If I could earn a bigger salary, then I would be satisfied.
If I was more patient, then I would be a good parent.
If I could achieve something bigger, then I would have made it.
It can be a place of distortion for us. If and then is an inhabitation of discontent, an internal narrative of deficit, a daily story of inadequacy and laying, that places our future stability as conditional upon a certain set of external or internal changes.
Maybe the most insidious is this:
If I could be better … do more … screw up less … then I would be loved.
It is the most insidious because it goes to the deepest yearning of the soul. To be loved. To be valued. To be chosen, seen, accepted, and liked. To belong relationally to another, whose posture and feelings and thoughts toward you are simply love.
The Scriptures places one love above all others: the love of the Father. This is the anchor love, the love that holds us fast and secure, even in the face of critique or opposition. It is only this love that enables us to make choices on the basis of their inherent integrity, rather than on their perceived popularity. It is only when the love of God becomes our true ballast, our true security, our true foundation, that we can navigate the popularity contests of the world with actual integrity and grace. No other love can work as the foundation.
Today juxtaposes two stories, either side of the genealogy of Jesus.1 On the one side, we have the story of the temptation of Jesus. Hunger, wilderness, suffering, internal wrestlings. It is a suffering Jesus, an opposed Jesus. A Jesus in the fiery furnace of satanic opposition and bodily weakness. It is the Jesus who knows every suffering we inhabit—who knows our physical trials, our fatigue, our anxieties, our temptations, and our internal longings for belonging and value.
An on the other side, we have the baptism of Jesus. The Jesus who went down into those waters, and then emerged to the affirmation of the Father.
You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.
The most striking thing about the affirmation of the Father, to me, has always been this.
It comes at the beginning, and not the end, of His ministry.
You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.
Beloved before He has healed anyone. Pleasing before He has preached a word. Secure in the deep appreciation for the Father for His life, before He has achieved a single thing that might attain it.
This is not an if and then kind of love. This is a love that is the foundation, the planting, the secure foundation of belovedness from which all doing and being springs forth. It is the great inversion of every conditional love of the world into the security of the Kingdom, where the complete belovedness and the pleasure of the Father come first.
The two are connected. Because the steadfastness of Jesus in the wilderness is built upon the affirmation of the Father in the river. And thus it always is. Because, my friends, our if and then valuations of our self will always leave us short. When we find ourselves in the wilderness, if and thens looming above us, then the wilderness becomes to us proof of the unlove of the Father.
We follow a better rabbi. For we, like Him, begin in a different place. We begin from the waters of baptism, where every conditional love is banished, and instead all of our moments—from our greatest triumphs to our harshest deserts, our joys and our genuine pains, all carry the permanent assurance of the Father:
You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased.
Reflect:
Are there ways that I am living in an If and Then relationship with the Father?
If so, release these things to Him, one at a time.
Spend some time with those words of the Father. They were not just for Jesus, but for every person who joins Him in His baptismal Way.
You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased.
Pray:
Father,
I see the beauty of this.
I see that, to truly know that I am utterly loved,
Would make me free;
It would make me courageous, creative, kind, and patient;
It would help me walk differently through struggles—
Where the pain stops being to me proof of your displeasure,
But opportunity to defy my enemy in the knowledge of my Father.
But, Father,
It is difficult.
There are wounds in this heart that run deep,
Shouting down your words with labels of failure, weakness, and shame.
And so, Father of love,
Would you establish your word in greater strength in me today,
In the healing presence of your Spirit,
And the might of your power.
Would you alight upon me as a dove,
Declaring in this soul your nature,
Your character,
And your love for me.
Would you renew me from the inside out,
Melting my pain,
And establishing me to walk through everything,
As the securely, perfectly, breathtakingly
Beloved.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
2 Kings 23:36-25:30 | Psalm 76
Which in itself positions Jesus’ relationship to the Father in the context of all humanity’s intended relationship to the Father—each one of us as children of Adam and Eve.