Baptism of the Lord, January 11, 2009

Beloved

Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-11

Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the story is about a man born in his ‘80’s who ages backwards.  “I was born under unusual circumstance,” Benjamin says. “While everyone was aging, I was getting younger.  All alone.” The odd convention worked for me, highlighting the aging processes of Button’s friends and family as they and he inexorably work their separate ways from birth to death, but in opposite directions.

As the movie opens, Benjamin’s mother dies giving him birth, and his grief-stricken father, horrified by the sight of this infant whose tiny body is more like an octogenarian’s, carries him into the nighttime streets of 1919 New Orleans.  The cataracts, arthritis, wrinkles, and grey, thinning hair are too much for the father, who leaves him, perhaps intentionally, on the steps of a kind of nursing home, though this is 1919, and the home still feels like a home, or a boarding house.  Baby Benjamin is found by the major care-giver, “Queenie,” who takes him as her own child, in spite of the advice of the doctor who tells her that he is dying – of old age.  Seeing Benjamin, one of the home’s elderly residents candidly notices, “He looks just like my ex-husband!” But Queenie has a special compassion, even love, for Benjamin, possibly because of her own circumstances:  she says that she’s barren; we see that she’s black; we infer from her work that she is poor.

But with Benjamin in her arms, Queenie becomes the royalty befitting her name.  She commits her love to him in spite of the doctor’s advice.  Looking into Benjamin’s face she says, “You are as ugly as an old pot, but you’re still a child of God.”  And her mothering love endures through the rest of film, as we watch her life unfold normally, even as Benjamin marches with her toward death, backwards.  (See the film’s website, www.benjaminbutton.com, for these and other quotes in both ‘trailers’ and film clips.)

I think that, at the end of the film, it was respect for Queenie’s love for Benjamin that brought my tears.  With all her actions she said, “You’re my child.  I love you.  I always will.”  I’ve seen that look in the eyes of new parents and grandparents.  As my younger son moves toward his marriage, I recently looked through old photos, and I recall feeling such love for him.  I still do.  I can’t imagine anything breaking that love.

Such is the love that flows into Jesus at his baptism by John in the Jordan River.  We don’t know if anyone else hears, but Mark says that Jesus saw the skies torn apart, and a words of blessing come “from heaven,” which is Mark’s respectful way of saying, “from God.”  The words are a blessing:  “You are my son, beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  (Mark 1:9-10, NRSV)

The church remembers this blessing of God every year, on this first Sunday after the Epiphany.  We remember the words partly to remember that they empowered Jesus for the ministry that would unfold for him beyond them.  The child of Bethlehem quickly becomes a man for a nation, a world, and all time.  His baptism is his commission, his confirmation of a calling, and his encouragement, all in one.  But most of all, these words of God for him are a blessing.  Here God reminds Jesus of his royal inheritance:  he is blessed by God’s unfailing love.  Nothing to come can take away the knowledge that he is beloved by God.

And there will be moments, for sure, when he’ll be tempted to forget.  When his disciples misunderstand him; when his family thinks him deranged or possessed; when his followers desire bread over truth; when those closest deny him at the end; when the soldiers put him on the cross. In each of those moments, the echo of God’s blessing is surely part of what sustains him:  “You are my child, [you are my] beloved.”

We remember those words because they are special to Jesus, first of all.  But they are special to us, too.  Why?  Because baptism is a moment when we are also blessed.  Those of us who have come to this font, or one like it somewhere, all have that same blessing.  In our baptism, this ordinary-looking moment became transcendent. This outward, visible moment became inward, invisible grace. 

Though some of us came to our baptisms before we could understand enough to remember, and though all of us couldn’t understand enough to absorb its depths, we too are blessed.  In our baptisms, God spoke a word of blessing:  “You are my child.  Beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”

Of course, that blessing didn’t mean that there isn’t more work for us to do. We still must grow in our faith, by studying our Bibles, and by saying our prayers, and by worshipping with our faith-family, and by working for the good of our neighbors.  There is still work to do, yes; until we die, we journey toward God’s perfecting us in faith.  But our Christian journeys each began with God’s blessing of our lives as unique, timeless, and, in that sense, special.

We invite you today to “remember your baptism, and be thankful.”  Maybe there is no fragment of actual memory there, or maybe there is.  Either way, you’ve also seen us hold infants and welcome adults who have been baptized at this font.  You’ve watched and participated in other baptisms.

Here’s the message at the core of this sacrament, this ordinary moment become holy with the presence of God:  God has taken you, and most of your neighbors sitting beside you this morning, and many other neighbors you meet every day, and given us all a blessing.  “You are my child,” said God one day to you.  “[You are] beloved.”

Maybe it’s hard to recall that moment, because so much happens. Lives unfold.  Moments follow moments.  We are busy, each of us, our time unfolding slowly but surely. So we forget.  But still the truth remains.  As Queenie says of Benjamin, someone of God’s family might one day say of each of us:  “You are as ugly as an old pot, but you’re still a child of God.”

Remember your baptism.  Claim your inheritance.  Live into the love that God has for you.  It is the truth.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord, and with Christ, you are dearly loved. Remember your baptism.  And be thankful.