Beloved

 “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.” 

I love this story of Jesus because there is so much movement. Jesus leaves his hometown of Nazareth and is geographically moving towards where John the Baptist is. He gets baptized and, boom!, he moves to the desert. And after the desert, he continues traveling and the men that we would later call disciples begin start to follow him. I see this and my gut reaction is, wow, Jesus gets things done. He wastes no time. He is working hard. I hear this and I like it because as a daughter of immigrants, first-generation American, first in my family to attend a four-year college, I had to move around a lot, I always felt pressure to get things done and get them done right, I could not afford to waste any time. I love this story of Jesus because I see my story in it. Maybe Jesus had the spirit of a boss, go-getter, Latina! 

But this story is not just about movement and my story is not just about accomplishments. Jesus left his hometown in search of something, he was longing, he felt called to go out and find John the Baptist. And the fact that after this he found the disciples tell us that he was in search of community, he was in search of his people. Thus, his baptism wasn’t just a moment of validation for John the Baptist, the one who had been announcing, YELLING, at people to change their ways and repent, it was a moment of validation for Jesus. He let himself be baptized and in that humble receptivity, in this climax of his search and longing, there was an interior movement happening and his true identity was revealed. 

Jesus has been called many names. Teacher, preacher, revolutionary, friend, and even criminal. But here, at this moment, God doesn’t say, hey everyone this man here is God, Godself, an extension of me. God says this is my Beloved.  This is the identity of Jesus and it is the truth of who he is because it is his truth grounded in God, the greatest mystery, the I Am, the one who is divine love loving. The other words, the other titles, can be partially true, they can express a perception people have of Jesus, but it is not the fullness of who he is and what he was about. 

Immediately after this moment, Jesus is tempted. Talk about a hard pivot in the story. Jesus is baptized and he follows the Spirit and still, he is tempted. How can this be? Part of that fullness, that mystery that is Jesus, includes humanity. Jesus being a human did not free him from temptations. I wonder how he felt when he was in the desert being tempted; the darkness, the fear, the loneliness. Perhaps I wonder because I too have felt darkness, fear, and loneliness. And I am not my best self when I am in those spaces and feelings. I don’t make the best choices and those choices don’t reflect the truth of who I am or who I want to be.

Like Jesus, many words exist to describe me. Throughout my life, I have heard many names to describe me and my family. Some are gracious, like Loyal. Hard-working. Fun. Lively. Some not so much, like beaner, mojados, criminals. These words, these stereotypes of people like me reveal a perception others have of me, a partial truth, I dare to say, but that is me, that is not who I am, that is not Ana. The danger lies not in the words of the stereotypes but in the temptation they offer. Stereotypes trap the people they are about into boxes and lure the believers of the stereotypes into alienation. If you believe a stereotype about me, you don’t know me. And if you don’t take time to know me then we can’t be in community together. In high school, I struggled with stereotypes. I was one of five students who were considered minority students in my private school. Five. Too often I heard negative stereotypes about Mexicans and I was tempted. Tempted to believe they were the truth about me, because yes, I do work hard, I am a lot of fun to be around and my mom does make the best frijoles and arroz and chiles rellenos. But I was also tempted to hide. I am white-passing, if I go along with the jokes, no one will suspect I am Mexican, and no one will make fun of me. Both felt like protection, like self-preservation. Both led me away from the truth of who I am. Both temptations locked me into a box. 

Belovedness doesn’t deny the humanity, it uplifts it. It is about remembering what the Hebrew Scriptures teach us, that humanity is the image-bearer of God: In its goodness and brokenness, light and darkness, ego and spirit; It encompasses it. It embraces it. In the Catholic Tradition, we call Baptism a sacrament because we believe that at that moment something about us changes, we believe (in faith) that the mystery of grace validates us, as God’s beloved children. Validates our parents as witnesses of our lives and gifts us a community to be welcomed into. Baptism reminds us that we are not alone, we never were and in the moments when we may feel it, we still aren’t. 

I don’t know who Jesus is to you, personally, but today we are invited to pay attention to the truth of who he is. He is Beloved, he is the dear one of God, the mystery of Love Loving. That is no small box to be trapped in. 

I love this story because it challenges me to look at my own story with deep love. It begs an interior movement in me. It asks me to move out of these boxes, into a more expansive truth, and in doing so, it moves me to speak up and stand up when others are being tempted. I love this story because this is my story, I am God’s Beloved too. That is the truth of who I am. So no, Jesus is not a Latina go getter. But he sees me and I see him.