God Delights In You

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Today we learn from the Baptism of Jesus just how God the Father views us – kinda scarry huh – nah – just the opposite!

Luke Chapter 3 - Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

God the Father delighted in Jesus; God your Father, also delights in you.

When you were Baptized

·       The Holy Spirit descended within you, giving you a share in God’s life and you became an adopted daughter or son of God.

·       At your Baptism God the Father proclaimed to: This is my beloved son (or daughter), with whom I am well pleased

That is what God is trying to tell you in your Baptism. You are His child,

·       He loves you not because of what you do or have failed to do,

·       But because of what you are – His son or daughter

Why do you love your children and think they are amazing?

·       Just because they are your children!

·       God loves you for the same reason!

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God the Father delighted in Jesus. God the Father also delights in you!

You say, “No, that is not possible. I have so many sins, how could God delight in me?”

A good Father or Mother doesn’t love their child because they are a high-performance kid.

·       They love their child because it’s THEIR CHILD.

·       And that’s why God, your Father, loves you.

·       Just because You’re His Child!

Recognizing that love should take away your anxiety about measuring up.

Recognizing that love should make you strong, should make you confident that you belong in the world, and that the universe is better, and that God is pleased, because you exist.  

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Existential Validation

The philosopher Joseph Pieper insists that we can’t celebrate the goodness of the world until we can first celebrate our own being. You can’t rest in the goodness of existence unless you’re convinced that it’s good that you exist.

The need for existential validation is universal. Again from Pieper: “What matters to us, beyond mere existence, is the explicit confirmation: It is good that you exist; how wonderful that you are!”[1] One way or another, everyone needs to be convinced that it’s good that they exist. If they think the goodness of their being is in doubt, they will attempt to compensate by the goodness of what they do. And when self-validation is based on doing, not being, the only way to justify oneself is by ceaseless activity.

If you’re standing on the solid ground of existential goodness, you can simply rest there. But for a lot of folks the only thing between them and the bottomless void of worthlessness is the net woven of their own achievements. And those cords keep fraying and snapping, their achievements keep getting obsolete and wearing out, which means they have to be constantly tending to that net, fixing up the old ropes and adding new ones. They have to make themselves matter, all the time. The most arrogant, self-promoting person you know is desperately trying to save his own existence from slipping into the dark abyss of irrelevance. That person can’t rest. That person can’t celebrate being.

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Besides which, self-validation doesn’t work. We don’t know enough about a) our own character and b) the grand scheme of things to know whether, in the big picture, in the long run, it’s good that we exist. Only God knows enough about us and about everything else to give us that assurance. Only the one who gave us existence can validate our existence.

            This is where the doctrine of God’s Fatherhood becomes so consoling. Our Lord’s joy is the model for all Christian joy, and it is based totally on the relationship with the Father: “If Jesus radiates such assurance, such happiness, such availability, it is by reason of the inexpressible love by which He knows that He is loved by His Father.”

            A Father’s love isn’t based on doing, but on being. It’s not dependent on performance, but on existence.

It’s been really amazing having my grandson Cormac at our house. Whenever I come into the room and see him I explode with delight. I get a big smile, my eyes light up, I throw my hands up in the air and I say, “Cormac, you are amazing. You are so beautiful and wonderful.” And he just beams and then he belly laughs and he loves me.

Why does he love me – and everyone knows he loves me the most – because I delight in him.

That’s the key – if we knew just how much God the Father delights in us we would be more likely to love him in return. We don’t need to be good for God to love us. But once we recognize just how much God delights in us some amazing things happen:

Instantly we are more at peace; anger and fear begin to subside; and we want to love God in return. We want to please the One who is already so pleased with us.

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God’s love for us is the same way. It is not earned. That’s why we call it gratuitous. Baptism, the sacrament that makes us children of God (and remember, He wants to adopt everyone), isn’t based on merit. This is the reason we baptize infants, because the only prerequisite to being loved by God is existence: “the sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant baptism.” Even if you act badly, you’re still loved by God, still valued by Him: “God proves His love for us in this, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

No one earns God’s love. No one can achieve a justification for their own existence. To try is to deny the fundamental generosity of God which gave us our existence and validates it. After saying that Jesus’ joy is based on being loved by His Father, St. Paul VI goes on to say that Jesus died precisely “in order to eradicate from man’s heart the sins of self-sufficiency.” To accept God’s love, to value and delight in our own being and the being of all things, we have to first accept the truth that none of it is based fundamentally on anything any of us can do.