BELOVED SON

It is a wonderful thing to be loved! It is marvellous how deep the love of a father or mother for their offspring goes! If that is how we feel in human family relationships, how much greater must the love of God be for His Son. Human relationships are complex and can often be stressful because of our failings and inadequacies. God the Father and the Son are perfect, without flaws, and therefore there was and is nothing that could ever come between them. Their intimacy must be beyond the reckoning of the human mind. This makes the words of Christ on the cross all the more haunting as we hear Him cry ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’, Ps. 22.1.

There were two occasions when God spoke concerning His beloved Son. On the occasion of the baptism of the Lord Jesus, when coming up out of the waters of the River Jordan, God broke the silence of heaven to say ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’, Matt. 3. 17, cf. Mark 1. 11 and Luke 3. 22. The message is clear. God is declaring the relationship that He has with ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ - He is ‘my Son’. Secondly, God is confirming His love for His Son - ‘my beloved Son’. Thirdly, God is making it clear that He is absolutely delighted with everything that this lovely man has done - ‘in whom I am well pleased’.

The second occasion when God speaks about the Lord Jesus is at the transfiguration. This is described in today’s scripture reading. The event is described by all three synoptic gospel writers, Matt. 17, Mark 9 and Luke 9. Again the accolade of the Father for the Son is just the same, with this addition - those who hear are instructed, ‘hear ye him’. The three privileged disciples had just witnessed an amazing sight. Peter describes it many years later as being ‘eyewitnesses of his majesty’, 2 Pet. 1.16. They saw the Lord in the full blaze of His coming glory. They saw Moses and Elijah talking with Him and in the excitement of it all Peter makes a suggestion which is out of place. At this point the Father speaks from the bright cloud, ‘this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him’. We too must hear him!