God's Beloved

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, January 11, 2026
Matthew 3:13-17

Do you have a favorite nickname, or something that those who know and love you best call you?  I prefer to be called by my given name, Rebecca. I don’t care for people to shorten it, generally.  I particularly dislike (for myself, not for others) Becky.  I have an aunt who has been calling me Becky for most of my life; it doesn’t matter how many times I ask her to call me Rebecca.  She is the kind of person that has a nickname for everyone, even for people you didn’t know it would be possible to have nicknames for.  It’s how she shows love and affection for people, by calling them her special nickname, and I’m Becky. She’s pretty much the only person allowed to call me that, because I know that’s her way of showing love to me.
When Jesus is baptized, God gives Jesus a beautiful nickname, “Beloved.”  Matthew tells us that a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  God declares how much he loves Jesus his son by giving him this name, “the Beloved.”  God shows this love with the heavens opening and the dove of God’s Spirit alighting on him as Jesus comes up out of the water of the river Jordan.  Jesus’ baptism begins his adult public ministry;  this name, “Beloved” will carry him through the temptation in the wilderness by the devil, through the testing of the Pharisees, Sadducees and other people who doubt his identity as the Son of God, through the betrayal, denial and desertion of his closest disciples, and through his suffering and death on the cross, for us.  Through all that Jesus endures for us, God’s declaration, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” will carry Jesus through and remind Jesus and us who he is.
In describing Jesus’ baptism, the gospel writer Matthew wants to address a common question, “Why did Jesus have to be baptized?”  If Jesus is sinless and baptism is a sign of repentance and forgiveness of sins, why does he need to be baptized?  Jesus has no sins to be forgiven.  At first, for this reason John the Baptist doesn’t want to baptize Jesus.  He should be baptizing me, he argues!  He is not worthy enough to baptize Jesus.  Jesus gives kind of a cryptic answer, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”  Frederick Dale Bruner calls Jesus’ baptism the first miracle in the gospel of Matthew, because Jesus dares to humble himself to be baptized by John.  He not only obeys God’s command; he shows he is human, too; this gift of baptism is for all humans, including Jesus.  His baptism shows us how Jesus will continue to act – yes, he is God’s son as the wise men understood at his birth and as God declares here today from heaven.  But as the Son of Humanity, Jesus identifies with our needs and experiences what we experience to remove barriers between us and God.  
To “fulfill all righteousness” means to make things right between humanity and God once again.  Jesus’ baptism shows us what Jesus will do again and again for us, going even to the cross to experience even suffering and death as humans experience, so that we might experience the divine resurrected life!  To put it simply, Jesus is baptized so that we also might be baptized with him into his death and life.  When God looks at us, because of our baptism into Christ, God sees this same beloved child of God, with whom he is well pleased.  Jesus’ name, “the Beloved,” is also how God knows us.
January can be a difficult month.  It is still dark and cold. The holiday cheer is over.  Going into our second week, your New Year’s Resolutions may be flagging.  We can get down on the state of the world and down on ourselves pretty easily.  We do not have Jesus’ same confidence that we do not need to repent or have our sins forgiven.  Like John the Baptist, we know we need a Savior.  We question our worth and worthiness.  This is why Martin Luther encouraged that we remember our baptisms DAILY.  Washing hands, taking a shower, doing the dishes – whenever we encounter water, we can remember that despite the name-calling of the world and the ways the world tries to bring us down or lead us away from God’s promises, we are baptized and beloved children of God.  We share the same name of Christ – we are Christian!  We are God’s Beloved.  Every time we remember our baptism, we have an opportunity to ask for God’s forgiveness and then give thanks that because of Jesus’ baptism, death, and resurrection, we too are God’s Beloved with whom God is well pleased!  Jesus reminds us who we are – God’s Beloved. This will carry us through. 
This week, we heard of another tragic shooting in Minneapolis.  We know the name of the woman who was killed – Renee Nicole Good. We do not know the name of the ICE officer. And because violence like this happens way too often in our country, and because we have social media and videos of people dying, we also jump very quickly to our own politicized understandings of the incident, depending on where you primarily get your news.  But as Christians, let’s remember, the named and the nameless all are God’s Beloved.  As we celebrate the baptism of our Lord this morning and rejoice that we get to become God’s Beloved, too, through our baptism into Christ, it strikes me that this is a very counter-cultural thing. Because we are God’s Beloved, we strive to see people how God sees them, which is also as God’s Beloved, God’s created humanity with infinite worth and value, whom Jesus died to save. This is true of both Renee and the unnamed ICE agent.  I worry and I wonder about how we as Christians are not taking God’s declaration of Beloved seriously.  On the cross, Jesus chooses to be killed rather than react with violence as the way of salvation.  Jesus’ mission beginning at his baptism is that we share in his life.  This message from the heavens is for me, but not just for me – that all of God’s creation is beloved and worth saving.  This message is urgent for us to proclaim even more so today.  Lives are depending on it.  Our souls are thirsting for it.  Our world needs the healing this name, Beloved brings, starting with our very own community.  God is calling us to take our baptism seriously.  Beloved is our name – let’s live it, for Jesus’ sake.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.