Greetings my friends.
This is Mark Ludman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in docks,
Welcoming you to Day 19 of Advent 2025,
Waiting with Matthew.
Today our reflection will be on Matthew 3,
Verse 17,
Where it says,
And a voice from heaven said,
This is my Son,
The Beloved,
With whom I am well pleased.
And so as we begin,
Take a moment,
Let your breath soften,
Let your shoulders release,
Feel the ground beneath your feet.
As we ask God to open our ears,
Our minds and our hearts to the voice of the Spirit today.
And as we begin,
Remember,
Advent's not a season for us reaching up to God.
It's a season of God bending low toward us.
God drawing near in ways that we don't expect and often in ways that we don't feel worthy to receive.
Today's scripture brings us back to the Jordan River,
A muddy,
Ordinary place filled with ordinary people,
People who are longing,
People who are searching,
People who are waiting and right there,
Right in the middle of crowds and dust and confusion,
God speaks.
This is my Son,
The Beloved,
With whom I am well pleased.
This sentence is one of the most transformative sentences in the entire Bible,
Not because it tells us what Jesus does,
But because it reveals who Jesus is.
Before Jesus teaches,
Before he heals,
Before he calls disciples,
Before he preaches the kingdom,
Before he confronts evil,
Before he goes to the cross,
Before all of that,
Before any achievement or accomplishment or success or ministry,
God speaks delight before it all.
You are my Beloved.
I delight in you.
My pleasure rests on you.
This is God's Advent posture.
To call belovedness before mission,
Delight before responsibility,
Pleasure before performance.
And if Advent teaches us anything,
It is that God's delight always comes first.
Think of the timing.
Jesus hasn't done anything notable.
His public life hasn't begun.
He's simply standing in the water in humility,
In solidarity,
In openness,
And the heavens tear open.
In the Jewish imagination,
The heavens opening meant revelation.
It meant God was unveiling something that had always been true,
But not always seen.
And belovedness is like that.
It's always true,
But it's not always visible.
And this,
This is why Advent matters.
Advent slows us down long enough for God to name what has been true since the beginning.
You are beloved.
You belong.
You are held in a love older than the stars,
A love that delights in your existence before your performance,
Before your improvement,
Before your transformation.
During Advent,
God opens the heavens again,
Not in spectacle,
But in stillness,
Not with noise,
But with a whisper.
And the whisper says,
You are my child,
My love,
My delight.
And for the next three years of Jesus' life,
In every conflict,
Every misunderstanding,
In every moment of exhaustion,
He carries this voice with him,
This identity,
This blessing,
This deep center of belovedness.
He doesn't strive to become loved.
He acts from love.
He doesn't attempt to earn God's favor.
He begins with God's delight.
But so often we reverse this.
We imagine God's delight comes after we improve,
After we succeed,
After we become holy enough,
Mature enough,
Fixed enough.
But Advent reverses our reversals.
The voice of God speaks delight before anything else is possible.
Delight is God's first language.
Belovedness is the foundation on which everything stands.
Think of a child.
A child can't grow without love.
They can't risk or explore or learn to trust unless they know that they are safe in the arms of someone who sees them with joy.
And we're no different.
To live the Christian life,
To enter the kingdom,
To become like Christ,
We begin the way Christ began,
Not with tasks or striving or self-condemnation,
But with being held in divine delight.
And when the father says,
This is my son,
The beloved,
It's not merely a statement about Jesus.
It's a revelation of God's heart.
It's a window into God's disposition toward creation.
God doesn't merely tolerate the world.
God delights in it.
God doesn't merely forgive you.
God enjoys you.
God's not watching you with a clipboard,
But God's watching you with affection.
Advent's a season when God reminds us,
I come to you not because you got everything right,
But because I delight to be with you.
This is why the incarnation is called grace.
Grace.
God choosing to live among us is not a reluctant rescue operation.
It's joy.
It's God's joy to be close to humanity.
It's God's joy to dwell as Emmanuel.
It's God's joy to come into your life,
Your chaos,
Your imperfection,
Your searching.
The voice from heaven isn't only about identity.
It's about relationship.
Delight is the language of intimacy.
And here's the invitation for today.
We allow this same voice to speak to us in our Advent waiting.
This is not a metaphor or a poetic flourish.
It's the deepest truth of the Christian life.
What the father says to Jesus,
God also desires to say to you,
Not because you're perfect,
Not because you're sinless,
And not because your life is tidy.
But because you,
Yes,
You listening to this right now,
You are God's child.
Imagine in the quiet of this moment,
God bending towards you and whispering,
You are my beloved.
I am pleased that you exist.
My delight rests on you.
And none of this is because of what you've accomplished.
But because you're made in the image of love,
You carry the breath of God,
You carry a piece of eternity within you.
When we let these words in,
When we allow ourselves to be named,
Something shifts.
Shame loosens,
Fear softens,
The need to prove ourselves becomes lighter.
Belovedness isn't self-esteem.
And it's not self-indulgent.
It's the truth that God delights in you even more than you wish you could delight in yourself.
And this is why we wait in Advent,
Not to earn love,
But to hear it again,
To let it settle,
To let it take root,
And to let it reshape our lives.
And Jesus emerges from the Jordan.
He moves into his mission with clarity and freedom,
Because he knows whose he is.
We also move into life differently when we start from God's delight.
We stop living as orphans.
We stop striving for approval.
We stop running from our own imperfections.
Living the Christian way and walking behind Jesus becomes less about trying harder and much more about remaining in love.
This is Advent's hidden purpose,
To return us to our core identity,
So that we can live from that place with courage,
Compassion,
Presence,
And peace.
Friend,
Hear me today.
You are God's delight.
You are God's beloved.
You are God's joy.
Not someday.
Not once you improve.
Not once you become holy.
But now.
Today.
Here.
And so as you let this truth sink deep down into your heart,
Please allow me to pray for you.
God of delight,
You speak a word of love that echoes through eternity and lands gently on the shoulders of us,
Your children.
Today,
Let that voice be heard again in us.
Where we carry shame,
Speak tenderness.
Where we carry fear,
Speak courage.
Where we carry loneliness,
Speak belonging.
Where we carry self-doubt,
Speak delight.
Teach us to begin where Jesus began,
Held in love,
Bathed in blessing and rooted in belovedness.
May this Advent be a season where your pleasure in us becomes the ground on which we stand,
The breath by which we live,
And the truth that shapes our days.
Amen.
Oh,
And so my friend,
As you rise from now to go into your day,
May you hear beneath all the noise of life the quiet voice of God calling you beloved.
May you rest in the truth that God delights in you long before you take a single step.
And may you walk into the world with the confidence of one who knows they are held,
Cherished and seen by love itself.
And may the grace,
Peace and belovedness of our God go with you every day,
Today,
Tomorrow and always.
Amen.
God bless you,
My friend.
Until tomorrow,
Peace be with you.
