Missing the Obvious

 

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

Luke 3:22 ESV

 

Many of us, in the course of our spiritual journey, come to believe that God is one whom we must seek out. We come to believe that he is one whom we must discover. We come to believe that God is someone whom we must pursue.

 

We, then, set out to do just that. We set out to do whatever it takes to discover God. We set out to do whatever is necessary to understand God.

 

While I tend to believe that our intentions in doing so are good, we are missing something. In fact, we are missing the obvious. We are missing the obvious because God has clearly revealed himself to us.

 

We see this, first of all, in our Christmas celebration. We see it there because God didn’t expect that we should come to him. Nor did he wait for us to come to him. He, rather, came to us.

 

God came to us in the flesh. He came to us, born as a baby. And he, then, lived among us.

 

We see this also in the third chapter of Luke. We see that Jesus came to John the Baptist to be baptized. And, after he’d been baptized, and as he was praying, the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice spoke from heaven.

 

This voice declared the words that we read above. God declared that Jesus was his beloved Son. And he declared that he is well pleased with Jesus.

 

These words were spoken to Jesus, of course. But they were spoken to Jesus in the hearing of all who were there. They were spoken to Jesus in the hearing of all of those who had come to be baptized, as well as John the Baptist himself.

 

In this way, Jesus’ identity was made clear to them. They came to understand Jesus’ identity from the mouth of God himself. They were able to hear the voice of the Father speaking of Jesus’ identity.

 

We learn from this that God is not hidden from us. He isn’t one who conceals himself from us. We learn from this that God is one who comes to us and reveals himself to us.

 

Although you and I weren’t there to observe Jesus’ birth, and although we weren’t there to hear the voice of God at the time of Jesus’ baptism, the same is true for us. In Jesus, God himself comes to us. And God speaks to us, making clear the identity of Jesus.

 

He does so primarily through his Word. He does so primarily through Scripture. In this way, he speaks and reveals to us these truths.

 

And, for this reason, we need not do anything great. In fact, there is nothing at all for us to do. We need only to listen. We need only to receive his Word. We need only to believe the Word he has spoken.