When I was in high school, I was a bit of a chameleon. I tried on different identities depending on which social group I was around. I experimented with my hairstyle and my clothing. I tried to adopt the lingo of the people I was with. I popped around with different cliques and groups. I was a band kid, a German club kid, a loner, and even a goth for a while (believe it or not!). Eventually, I found my people, but I’m pretty sure I gave my parents a lot of gray hair as I tried to figure out who my people were. 

Looking back on that time, I feel empathy for teenage me. I tried on identities like I tried on different outfits for the day, because I was trying to figure out who I really was underneath all of it. As much as I tried to find out who I was based on who I was around, the real me was inside all along. Underneath that hustle to find where I belonged was a child of God, fearfully and wonderfully made, but too timid to receive that declaration as truth. 

This morning, we are beginning a short Epiphany sermon series we are calling “Chosen | Choosing.” The Greek word that gives us our word “epiphany” means “appearing” or “glorious display,” and on that first Epiphany (celebrated January 6), the wisemen made it to their destination to worship Jesus. They saw him as he really was, and they were changed by what they saw and experienced, and they went home by a different road. Through this sermon series, we will be leaning on the Scripture readings each Sunday as we discover the truth that God has chosen us and called us beloved. Before we learned our need for God, God was already reaching out to us. Being chosen by God doesn’t mean we get to ride on the coattails of our chosenness. We don’t get to sit back, put up our feet, and call it a day. Instead, God chooses us and then gives us the opportunity to choose our chosenness every day. 

On Christmas Eve, Pastor Jeff read a poem by Pimone Triplett about Jan van Eyck’s painting of Mary receiving a visit from the angel telling her she would be the mother of Jesus. The poem describes van Eyck’s painting in great detail, but Triplett’s description of Mary’s response has stayed with me. She writes, “Since it’s her choosing to be chosen that mattered.” God chose Mary, and Mary chose to be chosen. Everything we do is rooted in the truth that God has chosen us. But, do we choose to be chosen, like Mary did?

In the church calendar, this Sunday is called Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. On this day, we remember Jesus’s baptism by John in the Jordan River. This began Jesus’s public ministry in the Gospel of Matthew, and it was at the baptism of Jesus that the voice of God confirmed who Jesus was. We have before us two familiar passages of Scripture: Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River and Isaiah’s prophecy about God’s servant who will restore sight to the blind and free those who are in prison. Together, these Scripture passages urge us to remember who God is and what God says about us.

Let’s begin with Isaiah. Our Scripture reading for this morning comes from Isaiah 42, but in order for us to grasp the broader meaning of this Scripture, we need to understand the historical situation. God rescued the people of Israel from Egypt and made a covenant with them, a promise to be their God. The people never really held up their end of the deal. They complained about God’s provision while they were wandering in the wilderness. They worshiped a golden calf while Moses went up the mountain to receive the ten commandments from God. They kept adopting false and harmful worship practices from their neighbors everywhere they went. Yet, God stayed faithful to them. Faithful remnants always remained, and God sent prophets to call the people and the kings back to the right away. 

Listen to how Amy G. Oden, professor of early church history and spirituality, describes what happened next: “Then, in the sixth century BCE, the unthinkable happened. The Babylonians defeated Israel. They destroyed the temple, plundered Israel’s treasure and livelihoods, took them into bondage, and marched them back to the gates of Babylon in chains, prompting ‘By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion’ (Psalm 137:1). The Babylonian victory over Israel was absolute…

“How could the Mighty Deliverer allow this to happen? Had God abandoned them? Removed from access to the temple and to the land, were they still God’s people? Was God still God? In exile they could only conclude that God had withdrawn favor and allowed the Babylonians to punish them for their sins and disobedience. Into this identity crisis Isaiah speaks a word. The prophet reminds the people who God is and how God works.”

This section of Isaiah provides a comforting word and the tender assurance that God has never stopped being their God. God remembered them, and God was still calling them and choosing them. And, as a sign of this, God was sending the servant who would care about their pains and their struggle. This is how Isaiah describes the servant: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice” (Isaiah 42:3). The Babylonian army exploited the weakness of Israel, soundly defeated them, and carried them into captivity. The servant would see their weakness and bring healing. He would see how they had been pressed down, and he would lift them up. He would not exploit their hurts, but would instead be the balm that brought wholeness and renewal of life.

The first 4 verses of Isaiah 42 talk about this servant who will come to bring restoration and lift up those who are hurting. Verse 5 shifts and addresses the people. God reminds the people that God chose them and continues to choose them. And then God gives them a responsibility. Beginning with the end of verse 6 God says, “I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” Did you hear that? God made a covenant with the people, and then God sends the people to be a covenant to the rest of the world, by doing just what the servant did for them: finding the people who have been pressed down by life and lifting them up, bringing comfort to those who are wounded, and showing a picture of God’s coming kingdom where there will be no more suffering.

This is the pattern we see over and over in Scripture. God chooses and then God calls us to choose to respond with faithfulness. We are chosen. And we have the opportunity to choose to be chosen. Today, in Isaiah and in Matthew, we have the opportunity to receive the declaration from God that we are beloved. We are God’s beloved children–chosen before we had done anything to earn it, and continually chosen even when we lose our way. We don’t have to try on different identities. We don’t all have to run to seminary and become ministers–though God may be calling some here to that ministry. We don’t have to have all the answers figured out, and we don’t have to do all the work ourselves. We are chosen, beloved, children of God in this moment. 

Have you ever heard of the “Cocktail Party effect?” Basically, you can be in a crowded room–like at a cocktail party, for example–and somehow hear your name being spoken over all of the other noises. Have you ever had this happen to you? I have had it happen to me. I remember distinctly being at a crowded shopping mall. One of my kids said, “Mom” in a relatively quiet voice, and instinctively I turned toward them to make sure they were OK. Maybe you’re in a restaurant, or an airport, or a school building, and someone says your name. Even though there are many other competing noises, there is something deep within us that responds to the sound of our name. 

I think this is what it is like to be chosen by God. We are surrounded by people who have opinions about who we are. They might even tell us outright what they think. They might think we’re too loud, or too much, too extra, too sensitive, too…you name it. And they want us to internalize that message and believe it. But, over all of that, God calls us “Beloved.” Over all the noise, over all the distractions, over all the messages from the media that say our bodies aren’t the right shapes and our homes aren’t decorated correctly, God calls us “Child.” Beloved. Chosen.

In the story of Jesus’s baptism in Matthew 3, I can’t help but notice that the story right before it is the story of the Pharisees and Sadduccess coming to John the baptist requesting baptism. John knows that they are doing this because they want to do the popular thing. They want others to see them checking all the boxes of righteousness and faithfulness, and John calls them out. He calls them a “brood of vipers.” But, what happens next is interesting. John says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” The verb “baptize” is in the present active tense in the Greek. It could be translated “I baptize” or “I am baptizing.” Even though John sees their hypocrisy, even though he knows they are coming to him for all the wrong reasons, he still offers the waters of baptism because he knows God is always calling and choosing. 

Next, Jesus comes to John for baptism, and John sees a problem with this, too. First, he didn’t think the Pharisees and Sadducees had the correct motivation, and then he doesn’t think Jesus needs the baptism at all. But when Jesus insists, John complies. He baptizes Jesus, a dove alighted on him, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). 

Jesus had come into the world, just like the servant Isaiah prophesied, to lift up those who were pressed down and to bring people into the embrace of God. Professor of New Testament, Mark Allan Powell says it this way, “The single most important thing that Matthew’s Gospel wants to say about Jesus is this: Jesus is the Son of God. This is the confession that gives birth to the church (see 16:16-19).”

At Jesus’ baptism, God spoke the word “Beloved” over Jesus, and God is speaking that same word over each of us, if only we would choose to receive it and believe it. God doesn’t call us to stock up that belovedness and keep it hidden, but God calls us to put it into action. God chooses us and loves us, and we make this chosenness evident in the world by loving those who need it the most. Just like Catholic worker founder and activist Dorothy Day wrote: “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” Here in this place, let us receive the world-changing truth that Jesus, God’s beloved Son, came into the world to let us know how beloved we are. May we receive healing and freedom knowing we are God’s beloved children, and let us spend our lives making sure others know they are God’s beloved, too. Amen.