Named. Claimed. Well-Pleased.

Matthew’s Gospel begins with the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to exile in Babylon, fourteen generations from exile in Babylon to the Christ.

Then begins the story: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way….” An angel appeared to Joseph to assure him that this child of Mary’s is of the Holy Spirit. “She will bear a son,” says the angel, “and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

He is named, “Jesus” which means literally “the One who saves.” Even before he is born, he is named by God.

He grows into adulthood. When he is about 30, he walks the 60 miles or so from Galilee to the Jordan River where John the Baptist has been calling people to repent and be baptized and promising that one comes after him who is mightier than he is. This one, John promised, would baptize with the Holy Spirit. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Then Jesus came, and he is nothing like what John anticipated.

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright compares the scene to “going to a huge concert hall, packed to the doors with eager and excited music-lovers. We all have our programmes in hand, waiting for the thunderous music to begin. We know what it ought to sound like. This will be music for a battle, for a victory, thunder and lightning and explosions of wonderful noise. The concert manager comes on stage and declares in ringing tones that the famous musician has arrived. He gets us all on our feet, to welcome with an ovation the man who is going to fulfill all our expectations.

As we stand there eagerly, a small figure comes on the stage. He doesn’t look at all like what we expected. He is carrying not a conductor’s baton, to bring the orchestra to life, but a small flute. As we watch, shocked into silence, he plays, gently and softly, a tune quite different to what we had imagined. But, as we listen, we start to hear familiar themes played in a new way. The music is haunting and fragile, winging its way into our imaginations and hopes and transforming them. And as it reaches its close, as though at a signal, the orchestra responds with a new version of the music we had been expecting all along.”

Jesus steps onto the stage and the music is completely different from any music ever played before. Where is the wind and the fire, the clearing out of all the chafe? John recognizes him as the One who is to come, but he isn’t anything like what John expected. John questions Jesus, “Why do you, Jesus, want to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins when you have no sins? Why don’t you baptize me with the Holy Spirit?” But Jesus answers John that it is fitting to fulfill what is right for him to be baptized by John.

As John lifts Jesus out of the water, the Holy Spirit comes down and settles on Jesus and a voice from heaven says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” All who heard these words would know that they came from two passages of Scripture.

They would have recognized that “You are my Son, the Beloved” came from the 2nd Psalm, a Psalm that was accepted to be a description of the Messiah who was to come.

And they would have recognized “with whom I am well pleased” from Isaiah the 42nd chapter – the first of Isaiah’s Servant Songs. The One “in whom God is well pleased” is one who suffers to bring forth justice to the nations.

William Barclay points out that because of the combining of these two Scriptures, “in the baptism there came to Jesus two certainties – the certainty that He was indeed the chosen One of God, and the certainty that the way in front of Him was the way of the cross…..In that moment there was set before Jesus both His task and the only way to the fulfilling of it”

Jesus’ baptism links God’s power with servanthood (Saunders). Jesus is named “He who saves,” and he is claimed as God’s Messiah who is the Suffering Servant.

We, too, are named and claimed in the waters of baptism. When I baptize a baby, I ask the parents “What name is given to this child?” And their answer does not include the last name, their family name. Because as we are baptized and are named, we are also claimed. Our family is the family of God. We are God’s children. And we are claimed as servants who suffer as well.

Isaiah’s Servant Song is for all people of God. It was written during the Babylonian exile. Walter Bruggemann observes that, “Although the designation “servant” is traditional, it is anything but “natural” in the midst of exilic despair. It is a remarkable theme in exile that Israel is freshly reminded of its relation to Yahweh and its consequent role with duties to perform and obligations to fulfill. In exile, Israel tended to be more self-preoccupied and self-absorbed with its own destiny. In the utterance, however, Yahweh changes the subject and summons grieving Israel out beyond its own self-preoccupation to other work.”

The one in whom the Lord is well pleased is the one who “bears witness to God’s justice” (Hanson). Dr. Paul Hanson, Professor of Old Testament at Harvard Divinity, describes how we are to bear witness to God’s justice. “The servant…bears witness with quiet, patient gentleness, confident that the nations will be drawn to God’s reign of justice not by…human force but by attraction to embodied compassion and righteousness….To live consistently in the service of the justice of God is to pattern one’s life on the nature of God.”

God who comes among us. God who eats with us. God who seeks relationship with us. Justice comes as we go to the unjust places. Justice comes as we eat and fellowship with those who are outcast. Justice comes through relationship.

You and I come are called up onto the stage. And we don’t know how to conduct the orchestra. Honestly, just like the Israelites must have wanted in exile in Babylon, I wish that I, or someone, could lift my arm and the music of thunderous victory fill the earth. But, God’s way is to bring the music that we have been expecting all along one fragile instrument at a time.

This water. This water names you – God’s own child. This water claims you – God’s servant in the world. With you, as you play the music of justice, God is well pleased. Amen.