Naming the Love (On the Baptism of Jesus)

Naming the Love (On the Baptism of Jesus)

January 2017

 

“This

is my

Beloved.”

And with that,

Jesus learned

the surprising satisfaction

of hearing

Love’s prior claim

made public,

the unpredictable delight

of knowing,

not only that you chosen

(that, you knew already)

but of

the saying-so for all to hear.

It makes a difference,

that saying so,

in the wonderful sense that it doesn’t:

the Love was there already—

between you

already,

Father for Son,

First Person for Second,

I for You,

Lover for Beloved—

and would have been so

still

even if Heaven’s voice had never spoken

to the crowds gathered ankle-deep

around the Baptist.

It would have been true already,

the love, the choosing,

eternal and unchanging,

without a word aloud.

It was, in that regard,

an unnecessary profession,

and thus, in another light,

all the more precious precisely

because it was not news to Jesus’ ears,

but was instead

the spontaneous outburst of the divine,

exclaiming and naming the Love,

simply for the joyful release

              of putting the words in air,

              of dispelling any shadow of secrecy or shame,

      and of not caring what anybody else thought when it was spoken.

I’ll bet the Lord blushed a little to hear it.