• Isaiah 43: 1-7

Using the same verb for “create” as in Genesis, the prophet-narrator in the tradition of Isaiah identifies the God of creation as the same God who “created” Jacob and “formed” Israel.  Because of this generous act of love, God’s people are instructed to not “fear.”  God called and named the chosen, Israel.  The crisis through which God’s people lived– the “passage” “through the waters” that saved their lives and delivered them to freedom– was also due to the fact that God “loves” this people, the prophet declares.  The larger, more venerable empires that surround Israel will be given by God “in exchange for you.”  Those who live in diaspora due to past conquests of Israel by her enemies will be gathered by God: “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

• Psalm 29

Thunder over water at creation is a recurring theme among many cultures of the ancient Near East.  The psalmist uses the meme and applies it to the Lord as creator.

• Acts of the Apostles 8: 14-17

In Luke’s continuing narrative titled the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit retains the prominent role to break news to individual women and men and to the whole world of God’s participation in human history through certain individuals.  When the apostles learn that many in Samaria have believed and been baptized, they dispatch Peter and John to “lay hands” on those who had been baptized and thereby “receive the Holy Spirit.”

• Luke 3: 15-17,21-22

Luke’s gospel account draws a distinction between two strong figures: John the Baptizer and Jesus.  The Baptizer himself says it: I baptize you with water, but “one who is more powerful than I am will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”  Luke briefly describes the baptism in water of Jesus and “of all people” so he can quickly get to the climax of the whole event: “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove”  And a voice from heaven declared, “You are my Son, the Beloved: with you I am well pleased.”  Jesus and all who love and follow him share God’s love and designated roles to advance God’s reign in the world.

Faith is a decision, a judgment, an investment.  Biblical faith invites/calls a person to reach the conclusion that life is a gift and that she is a beloved recipient as is every individual.  Isaiah described God’s sole motive as “love” that “forms” and “shapes;”  God’s distinctive motive and act that resulted in creation as well as the unique role of Israel.  In Luke’s drama about the beginnings of the church in his Acts of the Apostles, the leading actor, the Holy Spirit, is now bestowed on individuals through Peter and John, who travel to those who had already been baptized in water to make clear by laying hands on them that they have this seal of status for themselves.  This is the same Holy Spirit whose appearance at the baptism of Jesus shatters mundane proceedings with a “voice” from “heaven” and announces that Jesus is the “Son” and the “beloved.”  In the work of Jesus and all the baptized, i.e. the church, God’s love is restless, self-motivated, insistent, bold, busy, innovative, and life-altering.  Jesus is the single, clearest manifestation of God at work, but all who are baptized share this same work.  Each is named, shaped, formed called by the same God who begat all creation and perpetuates it by the same impetus–love.

In the closing essay of the collection, The Visible and the Revealed, Jean-Luc Marion takes up this theme of the universal meaning of Christ for each individual.  He asks:“What does Jesus Christ, therefore, deliver to all, everywhere and always?”  And then he answers: “A nonobjective and saturated phenomenon without equal, one that would remain inaccessible without him– love….”  The corollary that necessarily follows Marion writes is that “…those who love God live in him, namely those who love each other….  This announcement becomes good news for innumerable reasons, and all time in the world would not suffice to proclaim or to celebrate it.” (p 152)

This bold claim about the source/nature of God’s love requires a response/decision about one’s own status and the status of all other persons.  To accept one’s status as a recipient of God’s unique love, which is so boldly and unequivocally bestowed at one’s baptism, is to accept one’s permanent status as “baptized” into an alliance with the same work in the world as the Holy Spirit!  As audacious as it is to say: the same Holy Spirit that decalred the true status of Jesus at his baptism definesd your status at your baptism!